PESHAWAR: Health authorities in southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa want a single-day vaccination campaigns as opposed to the three-day drive announced by the federal government there so as to ensure better security to the health workers.
On Thursday, two more children from North Waziristan Agency tested positive for polio, bringing the total number of polio cases in the country to 52 in 2014 compared to seven in 2013 till April 24. The number of infected districts in the country remains nine compared to six last year in the corresponding period.
So far, 49 polio cases have been reported from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which included 39 cases from Waziristan.
The vaccinators have been emboldened by tight security provided by the police during the three-month Sehat Ka Insaf programme and want replication of the same model in southern districts where children have been facing risk of polio from the nearby Waziristan. In Waziristan, the childhood ailment is prevalent because of non-vaccination of children for the past two years.
The federal government has announced three-day anti-polio immunisation campaign in the southern districts, but vaccinators there hesitate to take part in the prolonged campaign due to security fears, said a technician associated with the EPI. The extended campaigns in the past have proved dangerous from security point for the vaccinators.
A single incident of violence occurred during the SKI programme under which 12 rounds took place in Peshawar and three each in Mardan, Swabi and Charsadda.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department has decided to run single-day vaccination campaign in the presence of police. Militants have killed 32 vaccinators in the last two years due to which it might not be appropriate to run extended campaigns.
“Without the presence of police the vaccinators aren’t ready to get involved in the campaign. Therefore, we are seeking security to fill the gaps identified in the recently-concluded Sehat Ka Insaf programme,” a senior official in Dera Ismail Khan said. The vaccinators fear attacks because they would have very little security in the southern districts, including Bannu, Tank, Lakki Marwat and DI Khan.
Officials said that the health department required Rs2 million for deployment of 6,000 policemen for a single-day campaign in one district where vaccinators worked for eight hours only and were able to cover the desired target. They said that it was not possible for police to guard vaccinators for too long during three-day campaigns.
Officials in southern districts told Dawn that they wanted a single-day campaigns as conducted under the SKI because the three-day campaign would expose the health workers to militant attacks for as many days.
The health officials said that for the upcoming campaigns they could face the problem of raising polio teams because of the scare in the districts bordering the North and South Waziristan agencies where 260,000 children remained unvaccinated for last two years due Taliban’s ban on oral polio vaccination.
“We have also been planning to strengthen the Expanded Programme on Immunisation in these districts, but donor agencies want focus on polio,” they said.
The officials said that polio was the only child-related disease that could be eradicated through vaccination.
They said that a plan had also been prepared to strengthen the routine immunisation for nine vaccine-preventable childhood diseases, including polio in the southern districts.
