HYDERABAD, Feb 26 About 40,000 people countrywide had refused to allow administration of polio drops to their children and 85 per cent of the refusal cases were in Sindh, said Dr Yehia Mustafa, WHO team leader of Polio Eradiation Programme in Sindh on Thursday.

He said at a seminar on “Polio Eradication in Pakistan” at Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences that Qambar in upper Sindh and southern part of Karachi city had a high reservoir of polio virus due to mixed and migrating population and low immunisation coverage.

If countries like Bangladesh, Egypt and Somalia could rid themselves of polio then there was no reason Pakistan would not be able to become a polio free country, he said.

He said that 97 per cent routine immunisation and six rounds of Polio Eradication National Immunisation Days (NIDS) campaign would end polio in Pakistan by 2010.

He said “Fight for polio may be considered as personal fight, fight for future and fight for Pakistan,” and said that students and children were the best messengers for polio related knowledge and they should be trained to go from door to door.

In reply to a question, he said that there was no cure or treatment for polio but only prevention by vaccine. WHO had been coordinating and supporting polio eradication campaigns since 1988, he said.

He said that polio eradication was a massive health campaign in the history of the world, which had stopped wars in many countries when polio teams went into war zones and administered polio drops. Such a popular campaign, therefore, would surely succeed in Pakistan if resources were mobilised, he said.

Dr Yehia urged that Routine Vaccination of EPI vaccines and Polio Eradication National Immunisation Days campaign must work hand in hand.

Prof Azam Hussain Yousfani, who presided over the seminar, said that research in public health diseases and vaccines would be encouraged so that LUMHS could emerge as centre of excellence of vaccine preventable diseases in the country. The Institute of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Medicine had been opened to help old polio affected cases, he said.

Prof Rafique Ahmed Soomro said in his presentation on ”Overview of polio eradication in Pakistan” that the porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border was main cause of spread of polio virus in the country. Polio spread through ingestion route that is through water or food consumption, he said.

According to other speakers, more than five million people have benefited from polio eradication campaigns since 1988 and 20 million volunteers have participated in the campaigns around the world.

The campaign in Pakistan would end by 2009 and if funds were not provided and polio was not eradicated, around four million people might die around the world, they said.

The seminar was attended by a large number of students, doctors and health officials.