LANDI KOTAL: The Khyber district administration in collaboration with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Emergency Operation Centre for polio eradication has started holding a series of consultations with tribal elders, religious leaders, members of civil society, mediapersons and even ordinary tribesmen to make the forthcoming anti-polio vaccination campaign starting from July 22 a success in Khyber tribal district.

A consultative meeting in this regard was held with journalists of all the three subdivisions at the Khyber House with deputy commissioner Mehmud Aslam Wazir in the chair.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Wazir urged the media to educate general public about the efficacy of polio vaccination. He said that the important information the mediapersons could provide to general public was that polio drops were not a curing medicine rather they enhanced the immune system inside a human body against the crippling disease of polio.

He said that the April 22 anti-polio vaccine demonstrations at Mashukhel village of Peshawar had negatively impacted the campaign in Khyber as a number of Bara localities were closely located with Mashukhel and parents in the adjoining Khyber villages later refused vaccination of their children.

Khyber district health officer Dr Shafeeq Afridi said that the Mashukhel incident caused huge damage to their efforts in controlling the polio virus in Khyber where nearly 50 per cent of the children under age five could not be administered polio drops after their parents refused to allow health workers in their respective areas.

He said that before April 22 incidetns they had repeatedly achieved the vaccination target. “So far, we have detected only one polio case in Khyber since start of this year,” he added.

“Our immediate aim would be to regain our previous target during the five-day campaign starting from July 22,” he insisted. He appealed to the mediapersons to discourage negative propaganda against the polio vaccination.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2019