Daily Times

President Dr Arif Alvi kicked off the week by launching a three-day nationwide anti-polio drive that aims to vaccinate a total of 38.6 million below the age of five. The aim is to completely eradicate the virus by next year. This is to be welcomed. After all, it is a matter of great shame that Pakistan remains one of three nations (along with Afghanistan and Nigeria) that is still crippled by this disease, here in the twenty-first century.

The positive news is that thus far this year, the country has been home to just four new polio cases: three in Balochistan and one in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This figure is down from 306 back in 2014. It also represents a fifty percent drop from last year.

So far, so good. Except that security still remains a challenge. Militants routinely target both vaccination teams as well as the military convoys that are deployed to protect them. This time around, some 260,000 Army personnel have been charged with this daunting task. Indeed, by the end of the campaign’s first day one solider had been killed in Bajaur tribal agency.

This naturally raises questions as to the risks that inevitably come with large-scale and highly publicised immunisation drives over a very short period of time. Especially when this potentially renders those involved as sitting targets for groups that still believe vaccination is nothing more than a western conspiracy to make Muslim men sterile.

That being said, it is hard to see a way around this. After all, polio is a dangerous and highly contagious disease that can infect the brain as well as spinal cord. Though no one has confirmed one way or the other as to whether it would have been feasible to vaccinate these 38.6 million children at intervals over the last year; resources notwithstanding.

President Alvi is right to call on the country’s religious scholars to play their part by supporting the anti-polio campaign. Yet certain quarters of the so-called liberal elite also need to do their fair share. If only in terms of refraining from sealing Pakistan’s internal borders to stop Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from moving freely to the country’s urban centres. While this is an unlikely scenario at present given that current polios cases are in single digits — it is worth reminding everyone of the stigma that surrounds those who fall victim to this disease that is linked to poverty.

Thus the key to killing off polio once and for all is better awareness as well as investing in under-developed areas. Pakistan is on the right path. It is hoped that it stays there.  *

Published in Daily Times, September 25^th 2018.