KARACHI, Oct 23: October 24 is observed as the birth anniversary of Jonas Salk, leader of a team that invented one of the two anti-polio vaccines in 1955. The disease had been rendering countless children paralyzed for life until the vaccine was developed.

The day is globally known as “World Polio Day” and focuses more on prevention sides of the disease.

Today, the world has the means to prevent children from falling victim to the highly infectious viral disease — poliomyelitis.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is still among quite a few countries where considerable and repeated prevalence of the disease is witnessed, despite years of efforts made both by the national and the international health organisations and agencies involving thousands of volunteers.

However, those associated with the polio eradication initiatives and campaigns understand that Pakistan would have had over 20,000 positive polio cases annually had the anti-polio campaigns not been run in the country. The first national polio round was held in April 1994.

The country has reported, in all, 85 laboratory-confirmed polio cases during the current year as against 16 reported until October last year. Six new cases have been reported only last week, while the most recent national immunization days were observed from October 13 to 15 to vaccinate 33 million children under the age of five years.

The new cases were reported from NWFP (33), Punjab (24), Sindh (16), Balochistan (7), and Islamabad (5).

If one retraces the polio victims for the year, it can be said that the first half of 2008 remained disturbing for the health managers and polio campaigners of Sindh. The province which had been reporting one case per month since May 2007, had seen an average two cases per month in 2008.

The situation called for a review and accountability of the quarters concerned in the province, but the pressure was reduced later as other provinces and the federal capital also started reporting polio cases. Islamabad had not reported any polio case since December 2003, Azad Jammu and Kashmir had not reported any such case since June 2000 and Fata had remained polio-free since 1998 while Punjab showed only one case in 2007.

Sindh chief of the Expanded Programme on Immunization Dr Mazhar Khameesani said that no new polio case had been reported in the province since August 28, which provided room for complacency to him and his colleagues as well as superiors in the government.

Cases have stopped now, which is indicative of the fact that quality of OPV administration campaigns has improved in recent months, according to him.

But insiders have the other side of the “success story” as well. There is still a need for intensifying the drives to eradicate polio virus from the province by involving all stakeholders, including parents of the immunity-deserving children.

A senior official said it was strange that workers were still facing the problem of refusal of OPV even in a peaceful and enlightened province like Sindh and city like Karachi.

Eradication of polio is technically possible, but at the same time we need to make parents realise that mass vaccination campaigns are aimed at regularly supplementing the routine immunization to protect children, both in endemic and polio-free areas, the official said, adding that the polio virus could travel long distances and endangered children everywhere.

Stressing that Sindh, during the year, has become a place visited by a large number of immigrants and refugees coming from the NWFP and other strife-hit parts of the country, as well as from Afghanistan, he said there remained greater chances of transmission of the polio virus into the province.

The immunization programme in Sindh, had about 10 months back announced polio vaccine administration posts to be set up for inter-city and inter-province child travellers at various entry and exit points on a round-the-clock basis.

However, the plan proved an elusive dream as funds could not be made available for the posting of staff at the proposed posts.

The permanent centres were supposed to be established at different points in Hyderabad, Umerkot, Sukkur, Dadu, Kandhkot, Larkana, Jacobabad and Ghotki, besides in Saddar, Bin Qasim, Gadap, Keamari, Shah Faisal and Landhi towns of Karachi.

Strategists are of the view that there is a dire need to protect children who travel in or out of various cities in the province irrespective of their place of origin, otherwise the goal of eliminating polio from Sindh and the country would be hard to achieve.

It is also considered by health workers that polio situation would remain unchanged unless continued environmental surveillance activities were ensured and sanitation and hygiene conditions were equally improved in all urban and rural areas of the province.

There is also a need for a review of the current communication strategies and to develop province/district-specific plans, with the involvement of local partners, to check the virus.