Vaccination setback

The anti-polio drive which began in Karachi and 23 other districts of Sindh on Tuesday suffered an apparent setback after families in the provincial capital and other towns declined to allow drops to be administered to their children. During the current drive, the third this year, 2.2 million children in the province are being targeted. Vaccination teams were initially puzzled but soon discovered the reason for the refusal was linked to the death of at least four children in Nawabshah earlier this month as a result of tainted measles vaccines. Parents showed the anti-polio teams images describing the deaths that had taken place and said they would not subject their children to risk. One of the children who died due to the contaminated measles vaccine had passed away at the Aga Khan Hospital. While administrators for the anti-polio campaign have issued assurances that there have never been deaths associated with the anti-polio vaccine, people are quite obviously fearful. For families – notably those from less educated lower income groups – it is not always easy to distinguish between one vaccine and the other.

The refusals in Sindh create a possible obstacle to Pakistan’s recent successes in pushing back polio. In 2017 a total of eight cases were reported from the country, two of them from Karachi. It is therefore all the more essential that every child under five in the country’s largest city is reached and delivered the drops that can protect against polio. Problems such as the one currently being encountered hamper this. The increasingly widespread use of the social media over mobile phones means that news travels quickly and can in many cases lead to panic. The deaths caused by the measles vaccine should never have occurred. It is the duty of health authorities to keep every child safe while delivering to them vaccines intended to protect against dangerous illnesses. Their failure in this needs to be investigated so we can better understand how the measles vaccines became tainted. There is a need also to spread awareness about this, enabling people to recognise that the polio drops which are so essential to removing Pakistan from the dwindling list of countries where the disease is still endemic need to be given to every child. The reason why people are afraid is easy to understand. For the anti-polio campaign to succeed, their fears need to be put at rest.