UAE polio initiative protects three million children

ISLAMABAD // The number of children in Pakistan vaccinated against polio in a UAE campaign has passed three million.

The UAE Pakistan Assistance Programme, which began in June, aims to vaccinate more than 3.6 million Pakistani children against five forms of the disease.

Mobile health teams have now treated 3,048,669 children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and 12 tribal areas, programme chiefs said on Saturday.

The initiative was launched by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.

It is “important for Pakistan given that the targeted regions are the world’s largest and deeply plagued by polio. Indicators of significant success have emerged since the first day of the campaign,” the programme said.

Sheikh Mohammed has also donated Dh440 million to a global effort to eradicate polio by 2018 with a special emphasis on Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It is the second contribution Sheikh Mohammed has made to help provide vital life-saving vaccines to children around the world. In 2011 he helped the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to deliver polio vaccines worth US$100 million.

Mobile medical teams had to overcome difficult geographical terrain to reach isolated communities in Pakistan.

An estimated 95 per cent of Pakistan’s polio cases in the past six months were from these areas.

Programme officials worked with the Pakistan army, local and federal health authorities and the World Health Organisation.

Pakistan is one of only three countries, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, in which polio is categorised as an endemic viral infection.

The WHO had previously warned of the situation in Pakistan, which reported 198 polio cases in 2011, the highest in 10 years.

This compares with 58 cases in 2012 and 93 in 2013, and 99 cases were reported in the first seven months of 2014 compared with 24 over the same period in 2013.

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.

* Reporting by Wam