A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child in Lahore.
A three-day polio vaccine campaign for Pakistani children was extended by two days yesterday after security issues and lack of parental consent significantly hampered the effort, officials said.
“The campaign was halted in some areas due to security threats,” Dr Rana Safdar, head of the anti-polio campaign, said.
“Our main concern is South Waziristan, North Waziristan and Bara area of Khyber tribal district, as our teams cannot go there due to security threats.”
More than 16,000 children were not immunised in the north-western city of Peshawar because their parents refused the vaccination, a campaign official said on the condition of anonymity.
The campaign was also halted in three districts in the southern port city of Karachi due to logistical problems. Three districts in the south-western province of Balochistan were not included at all.
“The total number of children not getting a vaccine during the national campaign will be in the hundreds of thousands,” the official said.
Recorded polio cases have already reached 184 in 2014, the highest annual number of cases in the country since the year 2000, Safdar said. Fifty-eight cases of the crippling disease were recorded in 2012, followed by 93 cases in 2013.
In the years since the government has ramped up vaccination efforts there has been violent push back, especially in tribal and militancy-ridden areas.
Sixty-four polio team members and police officers escorting them have been killed, and another 47 have been seriously injured, said health minister Saira Afzal Tarar.
“This is the price we continue to pay in our fight against extremism and terrorism,” she said on Tuesday.
Some militants consider the polio vaccine a conspiracy by the west to sterilise Muslims. Moderate local Muslim clerics have rejected these concerns.
“This vaccine is safe and allowed under Islamic principles,” said Qari Hanfi Jalandhri, a moderate cleric.
