UAE’s effort to wipe out polio

UAE has helped to vaccinate 2.5 million Pakistani children against polio. WAM-Photo

The National staff

ISLAMABAD // The UAE is leading the campaign to eradicate polio by 2018 with a massive vaccination campaign in Pakistan.

Two and a half million children have already been vaccinated against the crippling disease, with a target of 3.6 million in a three-month initiative by the UAE Pakistan Assistance Programme.

In a 12-day effort this month in Pakistan’s northwestern province, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and 12 tribal regions, nearly 5,000 medical teams were deployed to health centres in local communities and used mobile units to reach children in remote tribal areas. The children vaccinated were all under the age of 5.

The campaign is being made possible through a donation of Dh440 million this year by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.

Abdullah Al Ghafli, director of the assiatance programme, described the campaign as “an exceptional success”.

He said it had overcome geographical challenges that prevented previous campaigns from reaching these areas, which accounted for 95 per cent of Pakistan’s polio cases in the past six months, resulting in wider spread of the disease into other areas.

“The mass vaccination campaign is effective because it is an initiative of the UAE,” said Aysha Hassan, who is in charge of women’s health in Peshawar. “It has drawn an unprecedented response.”

The effort is being carried out with in cooperation with Pakistan’s army, its health ministry, regional governments and representatives of the World Health Organisation, which recently declared the renewed spread of polio a global health emergency. The organisation said military conflicts from Sudan to Pakistan have interrupted vaccination efforts, leading to a dangerous resurgence of the virus – particularly in Pakistan, Syria and Cameroon – that threatened to spread internationally. The number of global polio cases nearly doubled to 416 in 2013 from 223 the previous year, according to WHO figures. This year, 103 cases have been reported from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Syria, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2013, a total of 416 polio cases were reported from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria.

Polio is a highly contagious virus spread mainly by faeces, and by flies that contaminate food. It invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis in a matter of hours.

Although it can affect people of all ages, children under the age of 5 who are not yet toilet-trained are especially susceptible. Between 5 and 10 per cent of polio sufferers who are paralysed die. There is no cure.