PESHAWAR: Disappearance of militants as a result of military operation has paved the way for health workers to put brakes on refusals against the anti-polio oral vaccines by parents in Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Fata, which usually recorded about 50,000 refusal cases against the vaccine prior to military operation in 2012, registered only 145 children left out of vaccination due to parents’ defiance against immunisation.

Authorities say there were 3,152 refusal cases in April’s immunisation drive and 3,007 of them were covered by health workers. In March, Fata registered 4,813 cases and 3,417 of them were administered OPV by vaccinators in the mop-up campaign.

Fata reported 179 polio cases in 2014 owing to ban on vaccination by militants in mid-2012. The cases dropped to 16 in 2015 while only two cases were reported in Fata last year. There has been no polio case in Fata this year so far, mainly owing to military operation against Taliban, who blocked vaccination not only in Fata but also in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where they had influence.

Operation against militants termed main cause of success of immunisation drives

Most people refused to vaccinate their children due to fear of reprisals by militants, who would beat health workers and breaking their ice-boxes in Fata.

Officials told Dawn that during the current year most of the refusal cases were based on demand as parents were seeking provision of electricity, water and pavement of streets etc as prelude for administering OPV to their children.

They said that some people had developed misconception about OPV and believed that vaccination would sterile the recipients and cut population of Muslims while others thought that immunisation was not allowed in Islam.

The multi-pronged strategy employed by expanded programme on immunisation of health directorate of Fata in collaboration with Unicef and World Health Organisation with support of army and political administration has paid off and the authorities are hopeful to eradicate poliovirus by sustaining the gains of the past two years.

The defeat of Taliban by army provided opportunity to the authorities to carry out analysis of reasons for refusal and speed up communication activities to woo parents for vaccination of their children. Full-scale social mobilisation and awareness programme before the campaigns, displaying of pictures of celebrities giving OPV to children in public places, led to smooth-sailing of the immunisation drive that ultimately cut down number of refusal cases.

However, there is still a long way to eradicate poliovirus. Authorities need to immunise every child of the over 1 million target population in every campaign.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2017