THE challenges Pakistan is facing in its struggle to ensure that all children in the country are vaccinated against polio are well known, as is its lack of success in the endeavour.

The single fact that Pakistan stands poised to compromise the herd immunity of the world population ought to have sparked a frenzy of effort. And yet, the number of cases continues to rise, with last year’s figures being the highest in nearly a decade and a half, and the violence against polio workers and the security teams with which they must travel showing no signs of abating.

Know more: KP police arrest 471 parents for refusing polio vaccine

Meanwhile, mischief that ought to have been nipped in the bud has been allowed to grow so that now it has attained formidable proportions, ie the extremist right-wing propaganda initiated by Mullah Fazlullah in the north-eastern parts of the country, and then adopted by the Taliban, that the drops are harmful.

With the passage of so many years, this narrative has taken hold among communities, in particular in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and some parts of Karachi, and spun out of the control of the centre and the provincial governments.

Parents or guardians of children refusing to let the OPV drops be administered has become a seemingly intractable problem.

It is against this backdrop that the KP administration’s decision to arrest people who refuse to allow the drops to be administered must be seen. As the first day of the second round of the KP government’s Sehat Ka Insaaf programme got under way on Monday, some 470 people were arrested for this reason in Peshawar.

Though the threat seems to be having some effect — people similarly arrested in Nowshera and Kohat last week were freed after they gave in — it is appalling that matters have been allowed to reach such a pass.

The need for the state to retake control of the polio narrative could not be more urgent, and other avenues of inducement, such as linking the issuance or renewal of essential documents including national identity cards to proof of vaccination, need to be explored.

However, the most obvious avenue of all is for political and religious leaders across the country, but particularly KP, to become involved beyond what they have so far done — using the polio vaccination campaign as a cynical photo-op and making empty promises of continued involvement.

Consider the case of Imran Khan, who leads the party in power in KP, and Maulana Samiul Haq, head of the Darul Uloom Haqqania. Both promised personal involvement in the campaign but then faded away to attend to matters that they considered had higher priority.

The participation of leaders such as these, though, could make a pivotal difference. What needs to be recognised is that polio is no longer solely a health issue; it has been, unfortunately, politicised and as such, needs a sustained political campaign for its resolution.

Published in Dawn March 4th , 2015

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