KHYBER: With police ending their boycott of providing security to health teams, the seven-day polio vaccination campaign is in progress throughout Khyber without any resistance or obstruction from any quarters.

The district administration had to abruptly call off the polio vaccination campaign on Aug 7 when a majority of Khyber police personnel refused to provide security to the vaccination teams to press their department high ups for the acceptance of their demands, the major being their service structure at the pattern of rest of the province.

The authorities however succeeded in convincing the aggrieved policemen to end their boycott and the polio vaccination campaign resumed on Aug 15 ‘with full intensity’ as was explained by the health authorities concerned.

They said 965 health teams had been constituted to administer polio drops to as many as 195,716 children below the age of five with ‘foolproof’ security promised by the local police throughout the district.

965 health teams to cover 195,716 children under ‘foolproof’ security

Said Afzal Shinwari, communication officer polio eradication programme, Khyber, told Dawn that this time a new strategy had been adopted to minimise chances of polio infection with administering of fractional dose of inactivated polio virus ( fIPV) vaccine to the children aging four months as this strategy had shown positive and productive results in the southern regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He said the fIPV strategy had also been utilised in Peshawar during the Aug 7 campaign after detection of polio virus in environmental samples in some Peshawar’s peripheral localities and surfacing of some more polio cases in Nangarhar province of neighbouring Afghanistan in recent past.

He however added that alongside the new vaccination method of fIPV, the old practices of oral polio vaccination (OPV) and injectable polio vaccine (IPV) would also be applied to the children below the age of four months and beyond.

“We are quite hopeful that with the application of fIPV and a considerable reduction in refusal cases, the current campaign would yield positive results,” he expressed his optimism.

Mr Shinwari said that a comprehensive mobilisation campaign was carried out throughout Khyber in order to spread awareness about the efficacy of polio vaccination and also to minimise any chances of boycott or refusal.

“In order to achieve its desired expected results, in the pre-campaign phase, large-scale community mobilisation and sensitisation programme were conducted in all union councils of the district with communities, youth, tribal, religious and political influencers including refusing parents so that they understand the importance of the campaign and helped in vaccinating every child up to five years of age,” he added.

He said people were now very cooperative in the vaccination campaign and even bringing their children on their own if left out of the vaccination campaign.

Meanwhile, SP Investigation Zia Hussain visited a number of police stations in Khyber on Sunday and assessed the security preparations made by the local police during the ongoing polio vaccination campaign.

A statement issued by the police lines in Shah Kas said that security had been enhanced throughout the district with strict checking by police on all the entry and exit points of the district.

It said provision of foolproof security for polio vaccination teams was their prime responsibility and they would strive hard to make the campaign a success.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2023