Polio &Vaccine Bill Brieger | 19 Aug 2019 06:26 am
Recent Surge in Polio Cases in Pakistan Necessitates Urgent Review of Strategy
As part of the course on Social and Behavioral Foundations in Primary Health Care, Muhammad N Asghar posted in the class blog. We have shared these thoughts below.
Pakistan is one of the three polio endemic countries and recent surge in cases shows that eradication of the disease demands an urgent change in strategy. A look at previous five year cases in Pakistan shows a positive progress in reduction of new polio cases; from 307(2014) to 12(2018), but new cases still appeared in almost every province. The reasons behind this country wide presence of disease can be attributed to internal displacement due to conflicts, weak health systems and operational and resource risks. But the alarming increase in number of new polio cases during 2019 has reversed the whole progress made so far as the number of new cases as of today stands at 53. 32 out of 53 cases are reported from KPK region, which had observed massive internal displacement during last decade but the number of IDPs has decreased from last two years due to stability in the region.
This recent surge in polio cases in the the province is mainly due to increase in vaccine refusals due to rumors regarding side effects caused by the vaccine on social media. Official sources reported that after rumors refusals to vaccinate increased by 85% in the province. But high number of cases in other provinces when compared with last year cases indicate that multiple factors are hindering the progress towards containment and eradication of the polio virus disease from the country, which can be attributed to homelessness and poor sanitation, operational issues for vaccine delivery, conflicts, cross border movement etc.
This situation demands urgent review of existing strategy for polio eradication as number of new cases are increasing rapidly. There is a need to work on multiple aspects to make the anti-polio drive successful; some key aspects include detailed geo-mapping of the population at basic level and identification of missed areas to ensure every child is vaccinated, involving community and religious leaders, NGOs, CSOs for confidence building and education of the community, expansion of partnership with nutrition, hygiene, water sectors, and robust rebuttal of rumors and strict action against those involved in such heinous activities etc. There is a new political government of helm, which is sensitive to the social sector issues and taking measures to provide homes, health facilities and education to the disadvantaged sections. International agencies (GPEI, WHO) shall coordinate with the political government to review the existing strategy for revamping it, so that not only the current surge can be contained but the disease can be eradicated from the country to achieve the target of polio free world.