On 20,April 2016 when everyone was busy with his or her routine affairs, a complex targeted attack took place in the slum area of Karachi ; seven police officials of Karachi police embraced martyrdom in the line of duty. Their task was to provide security to polio workers who were in the field and were administering vaccination to children below the age of 5 years to protect their health part of a door to door anti-polio campaign. Though the attack was dreadful which left everyone in a state of shock, the polio workers are not ready to abdicate their responsibilities and they have pledged to abide by their responsibilities till the menace of polio is completely eradicated from the country.
Though these workers are only paid a mere allowance of Rs 500 a day for their services to the nation with a high security risk to their lives yet they are willing to continue their jobs to see the end of cause of of polio. Unfortunately eight polio cases have been reported till now since January 2016 out of which 3 were from Sindh , 4 from KPK while thankfully no case has been reported from FATA. It is pertinent to mention here that 179 cases were reported in 2014. Punjab didn’t report any case of polio as well whereas one case has been reported from Balochistan since January 2016.
In 2015 , 54 cases of polio were reported from the country out of which 12 cases were from Sindh. Out of these 12, 7 cases were from Karachi alone which shows how much Karachi needs attention of the government, social workers, vaccination workers, parents, civil society and doctors to eradicate polio virus from the mega city and save children from paralysis caused by polio virus. Pakistan had achieved 82% reduction in polio affected cases last year when figures came down to 54 as compared to the 306 reported in 2014, mainly due to the efforts and courage of vaccination workers who immunized children to polio through their door-to-door vaccination campaigns.
According to the World Health Organization, the menace of polio has been reduced by 99.9% since 1988. These facts pertain to the entire world but unfortunately Pakistan and Afghanistan are still vulnerable to polio and need more attention towards better immunization. Recently, with the support of WHO and UNICEF, Libya has completed its first 5-day national polio campaign since 2014 despite the violence. Over one million children were immunized and more than 2000 vaccinators participated in the campaign to protect children’s health and maintain their status as a polio-free country.
