KARACHI, Feb 20: Following the confirmation of yet another polio case this year, the authorities concerned have now decided to further intensify the polio eradication efforts and launch a special immunisation campaign from March 4 in the southern cities of Sindh.
Sources privy to the expanded immunization programme said on Wednesday that a potential polio case, which was under scrutiny for the last two weeks in Nawabshah, had been officially described as the second confirmed polio case of the province for 2008.
Earlier, a polio case was detected in Hyderabad, the second largest city of the province that also enjoyed the status of a polio-free zone for the last few years until mid February.
The sources said that though the Hyderabad case was the first to be confirmed after scientific investigations, it chronologically took place after the Nawabshah case.
Nawabshah, which was not enlisted by the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Sindh, as a polio virus-infected district, saw the onset of polio in a six-year-old girl in the first week of January.
The polio virus could not be found in samples taken from the minor girl living in a village of Daur Taluka of Nawabshah, but the relevant symptoms and follow-up actions in the population in question suggested that she had contracted the polio virus from another baby in her vicinity.
“It was too late to detect any polio virus in the affected child as the designated polio and surveillance staffers could only reach her two weeks or more after she was infected with the virus,” said the source.
It was further learnt that the girl in question, now experiencing paralysis in her right limbs, had no history of routine immunization of preventable diseases, but she was administered oral polio drops from time to time before reaching the age of six. On the other hand, the population in question had the rate of routine immunization against vaccine-preventable diseases of around 30 per cent, while the OPV (oral polio vaccine) campaigns remained up to the mark in the area, the source claimed.
Earlier, in the Hyderabad case, it was said that the infected boy of 14 months missed a significant number of EPI campaigns and was deprived of OPV repeatedly.
In 2007, 12 cases of polio were reported from Karachi, Khairpur, Thatta, Jacobabad, Ghotki and Kambar. Now, Hyderabad and Nawabshah had also entered the list of high-risk areas and that was why the authorities have made some amendments in the sub-immunization days aimed at vaccinating children of up to five years in selective districts of the province.
An EPI official said that if polio drops were made available adequately, there was the likelihood of further intensifying the campaign and extending it to all districts of the province.
As per a revised plan, the immunization campaign, which would start from March 4 for three days, would be executed in Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Karachi, Thatta and parts of northern Sindh.
Problems in the field
The official said that field staffers and surveillance personnel had to face problems in respect to their mobility in some parts of the province due to the floods that submerged a good area of Sindh, as well as the law and order situation after the assassination of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and the elections.
Moreover, there was a need to secure multi-year commitments for the financial resources necessary to implement polio eradication strategies, the official added.
Dr Yehia Mostafa, the WHO Medical Officer in Sindh, said though the detection of two polio cases in a month in the province had caused frustration among the immunization authorities and staffers, he personally felt that the situation could be addressed once the commitment found at the higher level trickled down to the district and field workers.
“Each of us, right from the health high-ups to immunization programme workers and persons volunteering in the field for the complete eradication of polio, need to own the anti-polio programme and in addition, we should also consider that vaccination against preventable diseases is the right of children, not a mere formality,” he said.
Of the 32 cases in 2007 in the country, 13 (40 per cent) occurred in November and December. The spurt of cases in the NWFP relates to continued inaccessibility to children due to the security situation in certain areas, while most of the 12 cases from Sindh indicate prolonged weak operations in some districts of that province, says an internationally prepared report.
Over 400 million children were vaccinated against polio in 2007, while the bulk of the vaccination campaigns were held in the endemic countries of Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. The last time a National Immunisation Campaign was completed in Sindh was in January, 2008.