KARACHI, July 15: Due to a false sense of security and fatigue among the health care providers, Pakistan has so far not been able to eradicate polio. Lack of commitment among the political leaders is another reason why the disease still makes its presence felt.
So said speakers during a seminar which was held on Tuesday on the issue of immunization. They said the country was among the seven countries of the world from where polio remained to be banished.
Of the seven countries, the cases of Pakistan, India and Nigeria were particularly worrisome as the other four had made considerable progress in this regard. The speakers, however, pointed out that the disease had been contained in a few known geographical locations in the world.
“This is good news because we can now concentrate our efforts in a few districts to which polio has been confined,” said one of the speakers.
The names of the experts who spoke on the occasion were: Prof Gaffar Billo, Prof D.S. Akram, Dr Asif Aslam, Prof Iqbal Memon, Dr Ayesha Mehnaz, Dr Azmodeh and Dr Shamsunnisa Ansari.
A speaker said about two years ago international health agencies were quite happy at the way the Pakistani politicians approached the issue of polio eradication. “Today, however, we are sorry to report that our political leaders no longer seem committed enough.”
The speakers expressed their desire to see President Musharraf or Prime Minister Jamali lead the national efforts against polio. They said even in countries like Afghanistan political commitment was apparent.
Afghanistan was a country with poor socio-economic indicators. Yet its track record vis-a-vis polio was better than Pakistan’s, said the speakers.
Pakistani health care providers suffered from a false sense of security. This was because they lacked information regarding eradication of polio, said the speakers.
Many physicians thought that two drops of anti-polio medicines were sufficient to create a lifelong immunity in a child, they said. At least eight to ten drops were needed to have that effect.
After every national immunization drive it was discovered that several hundred thousand children remained to be immunized against the disease, they pointed out. “And may be it’s the same group of children, possibly belonging to the remote areas of Sindh, who were left out.”
The speakers underscored the need for full involvement of the paediatricians and general physicians to change the people’s attitude towards vaccination, adds APP.
The speakers observed with great concern that the children involved in the 22 polio cases detected in Sindh this year were not given more than two or three drops of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV).
Registering their satisfaction that no polio case had been registered till date this year from any part of the province, they said the 22 of all he 44 confirmed cases in Pakistan were reflective of an improved surveillance.
Later, answering a question, one of the participants said 95 per cent of all under-five children had to be covered under the vaccination campaigns against polio to attain a zero prevalence ratio.