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Lahore: Sixty-seven children have been stricken by polio in the country. According to the latest statistics, many among them will face disability for life - a plight that is especially daunting in a nation not known for either its healthcare facilities or support for the impaired.
Most frightening of all is the fact that with the year still not complete, the number of polio cases has already exceeded the 37 discovered in 2007.
The figure for 2006 was also comfortingly low, suggesting that Pakistan was well on its way to eradicating the disease. Currently, it remains one of only four countries in the world where the disease is endemic. The others are India, Afghanistan and Nigeria.
"Giant strides have been made since vaccines and polio drops were introduced. In my youth, I saw a number of polio victims each year. Now we do not see any month after month, even year after year," said Hassan Akhtar, 75, a medical practitioner in the Attock district of the Punjab.
But like many others, Akhtar is perturbed by the recent rise in cases. The issue has indeed also become a hot topic for the World Health Organisation (WHO) which spearheads the global campaign against polio, and experts from the body have been visiting Pakistan to try and assess the situation. Initially, the problem of parents refusing to allow children to be given the transparent drops was seen as a key factor in the rise of cases.
Such "refusals" are an issue in some areas of Pakistan's conflict-hit North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Hardline clerics here have stated that polio drops are intended to render Muslim children infertile, and have motivated parents not to allow them to be administered. Some of the 28 cases detected in the province have been linked directly to such "refusals" and to the hold of superstition.
Victims
But with victims of the disease, all of them children under five, also being found in the Punjab and the southern Sindh province, where most parents have no problems with vaccination, it is also becoming obvious the problem runs deeper.
Dr H.B. Memon, National Manager for Pakistan's Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), has pointed out that one of the causes is polio drops are not absorbed if they are given when the child is suffering from diarrhea. Allegations have also surfaced in the media regarding the use of sub-standard vaccines.
Most frightening of all is the fact that with the year still not complete, the number of polio cases has already exceeded the 37 discovered in 2007.
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