PESHAWAR: The surfacing of a new polio case in Fata after a gap of seven months has prompted the health authorities to start mass immunisation campaign to sustain the gains against polio eradication in the past two years.

The two-year-old child also went to Afghanistan after the military operation began in the tribal region in 2014 and came back a month ago from the areas, where vaccination was banned and therefore, he may have got infection there.

Officials say they weren’t bothered about the origin of the virus and will go ahead with plans to immunise every child.

Officials say fresh polio victim went to Afghanistan in 2014 and returned a month ago unvaccinated

Early this week, the National Institute of Health, Islamabad, tested positive for polio virus in a child from South Waziristan Agency, they said.

The officials said Fata had shown remarkable improvement in 2016 as the last case was reported in November 2015 mainly due to the better law and order situation, which emboldened the vaccinators to reach around 965,000 targeted children under the age of five.

Deputy director at the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Fata, Dr Ikhtiar Ali told Dawn that the family of the newly-infected child had migrated to Afghanistan and was not immunised there.

He said the child had received one dose of the inactivated polio vaccine in South Waziristan Agency, where he stayed in a camp on return from Afghanistan.

“It hasn’t been confirmed if the virus found in child genetically sequenced with the one in Afghanistan but we aren’t concerned with it. The focus is on complete eradication of virus a resident case stayed across the border,” he said.

The deputy director said the EPI had planned a massive rapid response campaign after the surfacing of the first polio case of the year to provide oral polio vaccine to 500,000 children in high-risk areas of seven Fata’s agencies and six Frontier Regions.

He said 6,000 vaccinators would be deployed for door-to-door campaign.

“Fata children have improved immunity against polio following the introduction of the injectable polio vaccine in January this year.

“It is in addition to the monthly drive during which all children get vaccinated. There’s no issue of accessibility now due to the presence of security forces. Health workers are quite safe now,” he said.

Fata has been a stumbling block to polio eradication in Pakistan along with parts of Afghanistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, especially Peshawar. However, it succeeded in fight against polio compared to other infected areas.

Now, the relevant authorities aren’t bothered if the virus found in its fresh victim belongs to Fata or Afghanistan. Their concentration is on vaccinating every child in every campaign.

Fata recorded 16 polio cases in 2015 showing a reduction of 90 per cent from 2014 has effectively dealt with the chronic problem of vaccination refusals, which increased day by day as long as the Taliban militants held sway.

However, the military’s full-scale action, which started in 2014, helped health authorities make big gains against polio.

In 2014, there were 179 cases in Fata, mostly due to Taliban’s opposition to OPV but the army operation proved a blessing in disguise for North Waziristan Agency 150,000 children, who remained unvaccinated for two years, were immunised in KP where they stayed after displacement.

“We have only 242 children whose parents are defiant to let health workers vaccinate their children but we are working with communities to ensure that all target population is inoculated,” the official said.

Until now in 2016, Pakistan has recorded 13 cases, including seven in KP, four in Sindh and one each in Balochistan and Fata.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2016