Eradication of polio
is just a matter of time now. And the history is on the making.
This is going to be another epoch-making step of the human
race after small-pox eradication towards a world worth for better living.
Polio looks to be gone from most of countries except Nigeria,
Pakistan and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, chronic political unrest and social
conflicts in those countries have equal negative impact on the on-going polio
eradication initiatives, leaving behind the deadly virus alive and active to
attack and paralyze innocent children.
The newest and probably the toughest challenge of polio
drives in those countries is episodic killing of the polio vaccinators by
unknown assailants due to reasons not yet known.
Two such heartbreaking incidences already took place in
Pakistan and Nigeria respectively with the span of few months. At least 20 – 25
innocent polio vaccinators including women were shot dead while they were in
the vaccination campaign in the field. One of them was as young as 14 years.
Why they were targeted and slain, who were behind this
barbaric act and what remained to be their purposes –all these questions are
still unanswered.
But the damage has already been done.
The vaccinator force has lost moral strength ‘to seek and
immunize every child below five years in the community’ - the prestigious task
conferred on them during the polio drive campaigns which is essential to ensure
polio eradication.
The situation is alarming and tends to provide the virus rare
opportunity to survive and spread the disease debilitating the gallant efforts made
in series of polio campaigns of those nations.
And we should also remember about the mammoth global level
investment after polio eradication campaigns that might well go for a complete
waste if polio virus continues to exist in few countries keeping the threat of
transmission across the globe viable, especially to those countries where
eradication is achieved with limited or no polio vaccination drive happening at
present, thus left with a large cohort of unprotected and vulnerable children.
So, can we sit back and see our polio vaccinators being
killed off and on during the polio drives?
Polio vaccinators function as the army infantries of the war.
They are tasked to carry out the final assault on the virus by meticulously including
every single targeted child into the periodic polio campaigns. They are
extensively taught to overcome socio-religious resistance, geographic barriers
and conflicting situations with a smiling face and logical mind.
But we never teach them how to stay away from the bullets
that can be very well sprayed on them by the unknown and hidden killers.
And the most ill-fated ones have paid the heaviest price for
that.
The incidences are not only detrimental to the polio
eradication efforts of the globe but display nakedly a gross violation of the
rights of the development workers.
If those workers were deployed to work for door-to-door
campaign in sensitive or politically disturbed zone whether adequate security
measures were undertaken to protect their lives?
If not, then why the polio campaign was conducted in those
areas without proper security measures?
Polio vaccinators do have the right to demand for adequate
protection if the polio campaign needs their support to cover terror-stricken
or politically unrest areas.
The vaccinators do have the right to refuse their services if
the security measures are not in place or inadequate in those places.
The honorarium of the vaccinators is still not at par with
the amount of workload they shoulder during the polio campaigns. Many
vaccinators hail from the low socio-economic classes of the society. A large
fraction of them are students and unemployed youth. We also find a good number
of rural healthcare professionals providing services as vaccinators in the
remote villages.
During multiple field level interactions with vaccinators it
was observed that most of them appreciate the social cause attached to their
work, not much bothered about the honorarium.
It is those vaccinators who actually nailed the last coffin
of polio virus in India; it is those vaccinators who were about to convert the
dream of a polio-free society into reality in Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan.
Those are the most critical field workers we have who vow to
keep our children absolutely safe from the threat of polio.
It will be a crime if we sit peacefully at home to see them
being helplessly killed while instilling polio drops into the mouth of the
children.
We made polio drops popular in the name of ‘do bund zindagi
ka.’
Why not we care a bit more for the invaluable ‘zindagi’ of
our irreplaceable polio crusaders who are committed to the core to exterminate
the deadly agent causing crippling paralysis forever?
