KARACHI: Six private schools in Karachi Central district on Thursday refused to allow polio teams to enter their premises to administer polio drops to schoolchildren until senior authorities intervened and persuaded the schools management to change their stance, officials said.

The officials added that they had faced a total of 10 such schools in Karachi Central only during the ongoing polio campaign.

While the total number of such schools across the metropolis has not yet been compiled, an official in the health ministry said there could be around two dozens of such schools. But the Karachi Central district had more school refusals than anywhere else, he added.

“In the end, children in all the 10 schools have been covered against polio,” said Fareeduddin, deputy commissioner of Karachi Central, while speaking to Dawn.

He said four of the six schools that initially refused to immunise their students were located in Gulberg town while the two others were situated in North Nazimabad.

During the previous three days, four other schools in various parts of the district had refused the polio teams to enter their premises, the officer said, adding that they too were persuaded to end their obstinacy.

The provincial health officials said similar incidents had been reported in schools situated in other city districts as well where senior officials in police and administration had to intervene to convince them.

The Karachi Central district DC said his office had already sent a detailed letter to all the schools — more than 1,000 government-run and private schools — in which their management had been informed about the Sindh government’s decision to cover all the children against the crippling disease and schools were ordered not to resist in the way of national duty to make Pakistan polio-free.

The officials indicated at two basic reasons cited by the school administrations while resisting the polio teams. They insisted that all the children in their kindergartens and Montessori classes were already vaccinated. Besides, they cited annoyance of parents against the vaccination of their children without their prior consent.

By targeting the schools which had resisted the polio drive around 700 children were vaccinated on Thursday, said the Central district DC. Similarly, hundreds of children were immunized at the four other schools in the district over the previous three days.

Scores of schools had been refusing to allow polio teams to enter their premises in the past and most of them could not be convinced. This time, sources said, the chief minister had issued clear orders to the administrative officials of all the districts not to slip any such schools from the loop to ensure no more polio cases were reported in the province.

Thousands of teams have been mobilised for the polio immunisation campaign that kicked off on Monday.

Refusing polio immunization became a criminal offence last year, which has drastically brought down the rate of refusals. Parents tend to refuse immunization for various reasons, including religious beliefs and socio-cultural attitudes.

One polio case has been reported in Karachi so far this year, while 54 cases were reported across the country last year.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2016