PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is understood to have decided to engage the army to protect polio workers in five union councils of Peshawar during the vaccination campaign beginning on Oct 5.
It is the first time that the army’s support is being sought in the restive areas of Peshawar.
The relevant local officials told Dawn on Tuesday that the vaccination campaigns were not delivering the goods in Achini Bala, Sheikhan, Matani, Sherikera and Jugani union councils adjacent to Khyber or Mohammad agencies for being inaccessible to polio workers and police.
They said the poor or no vaccination had left around 800 local children under the age of five years at the high risk of physical disability.
The officials said the engagement of the army men for the vaccinators’ protection would cost Rs14.4 million.
They said unlike other parts of the province, where three-day campaign targeting 5.1 million was already underway, a separate, one-week campaign had been planned for the provincial capital to target 754,000 children under the age of five years with the help of 3,600 vaccinators.
The officials said militants had focused more on Peshawar as four of the 11 polio-related incidents in the province had happened in the city terrifying vaccinators.
They said three polio workers had been killed in Swabi and two each in Mardan and Charsadda.
The officials said despite the Taliban’s refusal to claim responsibility for the killings in question, it was widely believed in light of record that they were behind them.
“Peshawar is the only mega city in the world, where polio virus had been existing in sewage water since August 2012. We have to ensure that every child here receive oral polio vaccine,” an official said.
He said police would be responsible for the security of polio workers during door-to-door visits in inaccessible areas.
The official said the central police office had been instructed to arrange the required security force and mobilisation of police from other districts.
He said a meeting held last Friday with Home and Tribal Affairs Secretary Akhtar Ali Shah in the chair decided to seek services of Frontier Constabulary and Frontier Corps to provide security to polio teams carrying out campaign in the restive areas.According to him, the meeting was attended by the health secretary, Peshawar commissioner, director general (health services), personnel of intelligence agencies and army, Peshawar SSP and deputy director of Expanded Programme on Immunisation, officials of World Health Organisation and technical focal person for the chief minister’s polio monitoring cell.
The official said a request for provision of 10 platoons to accompany vaccinators during the campaign was formally being sent to the army authorities.
He said police would benefit from the army support to the maximum to provide foolproof security to polio workers in the areas, which hadn’t been fully accessed so far.
“We’ve been vaccinating children in these villages through local residents but we need to ensure that every child get oral polio vaccine, to fight the crippling disease,” he said.
Meanwhile, the officials said police would mobilise the desired number of security personnel to Peshawar, which recorded two of the total seven polio cases recorded in the province in 2013.
They said deployment of security personnel would help achieve better results during the upcoming vaccination campaign.
The officials said the government had also decided to deploy 2,000 Pakistan Qaumi Razakar activists to help police protect polio workers.
They said 10 of the 24 Fata polio cases reported this year came from Khyber Agency adjacent to Peshawar, while a total of 36 children in the country had been diagnosed with the crippling disease from January 1, 2013.
The officials said high polio incidence in Peshawar and adjoining areas posed a threat to fight against polio as bulk of the population displaced from tribal areas by militancy and subsequent army action stayed in the capital city.
