Polio Eradication Hinges on Child Health in Pakistan
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COMMENT MENTAL HEALTH Collaborative VACCINES The dramatic tale CAREERS Virtual mobility will EDUCATION Top graduates research needed to improve of two typhus biologists drive equal opportunities for volunteer to teach China’s psychological treatments p.287 under the Nazis p.291 scientists in Europe p.292 rural poor p.292 ASIANET-PAKISTAN/ALAMY A health worker gives a dose of polio vaccine to a child in Chaman, Pakistan, near the Afghan border, in May. Polio eradication hinges on child health in Pakistan Boosting basic medical services and routine immunizations — not travel vaccinations — is the key to ending polio worldwide, says Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta. ntil about a year ago, a world free cases, the WHO certified its southeast Asia or from Pakistan, Syria and Cameroon, and of poliomyelitis seemed to be region (which does not include Afghanistan encouraged travel vaccinations for Afghan- imminent. In 1988, about 350,000 and Pakistan) as polio-free. istan, Nigeria and others1. Formal interna- Upeople in 125 countries became paralysed But in May, the WHO declared polio an tional travel restrictions for Pakistan began by the virus. Last year, only 406 cases were international public-health emergency, par- on 1 June. Analyses in the past few years reported, with 160 of them in just a few areas ticularly because of the high risk of interna- show2 that symptom-free adults transmit of the three countries where polio remains tional spread from Pakistan, Cameroon and polio at surprisingly high rates. However, endemic: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. Syria (see go.nature.com/ 7z3efj). Disrupted computer modelling described3 earlier this In April 2013, charities and governments vaccination programmes in war-torn places month suggests that immunizing adults to pledged US$4 billion to a six-year plan are partly to blame. control an outbreak is less effective than pre- developed by the World Health Organiza- Confronted by this, the WHO took an viously believed. tion (WHO) to eradicate polio. In March, unprecedented step: it called for mandatory In my view, vaccinating travellers will after India had gone three years with no new polio vaccination for everyone travelling to be ineffective and it could make polio 17 JULY 2014 | VOL 511 | NATURE | 285 © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved COMMENT abolition of its ministry of health in 2011 and DANGEROUS REBOUND the subsequent devolution of health services So far in 2014, polio cases in Pakistan have NORTHERN to the provinces. Although the ministry was been concentrated in poor and conict-ridden AREAS SOURCE: WHO parts of the country. After a dramatic drop in KHYBER reinstated last year and federal polio efforts 2012, the number of cases this year looks set PAKHTUNKHWA are now back in operation, they are still weak. to rebound to 2011 levels. Peshawar Abbottabad That said, Pakistan deserves much more FATA Islamabad credit than it has received for its past work North Waziristan: Taliban leaders to eradicate polio, especially in its trou- have denied entry to vaccination Bannu: Home to most of the people teams since mid-2012. who have ed North Wazaristan bled tribal regions: it has staged more than since military strikes began in June. 130 national and regional polio-immuniza- Lahore tion efforts since it began house-to-house vaccination campaigns in 2000. PUNJAB But the emphasis on polio, to the neglect of Quetta other health services, has long fuelled beliefs PAKISTAN that polio immunization is an external ini- INDIA tiative operating for outsiders’ benefit. Anti- Western sentiment has led to repeated attacks BALOCHISTAN Polio cases in 2011 on polio-eradication workers, volunteers and Polio cases in 2014 security personnel; more than 80 have been Poverty, migrants and Disputed territory killed since December 2012. This year, polio vaccine refusals abound. SINDH teams have been hit by roadside bombs and by gunmen on motorcycles. In March, a Paki- stani polio worker was kidnapped and shot. Karachi Resistance to polio campaigns is more entrenched and violent in Pakistan than in most other countries. Disastrously, mobile- vaccination teams came under more sus- harder to eliminate in the poor and air travellers entering or exiting Pakistan picion than ever5 after it emerged that the conflict-ridden parts of Pakistan. It is each year, including the roughly 7 million US Central Intelligence Agency had staged largely here that the final battle to eradicate Pakistani citizens who work overseas, mostly a fake hepatitis B vaccination project in the polio from the world will be won or lost. as labourers in the Middle East. The donor Pakistani city of Abbottabad in 2011 to try Cases of polio in Pakistan increased from community has provided 200,000 doses of to trace Osama bin Laden. 18 in the first six months of 2013 to 88 in injectable polio vaccine for refugees, but no Although international Islamic scholars the first half of 2014 (ref. 4). Of these, 75% further financial support has been pledged have spoken up for polio eradication, support were in the regions known as the Federally for more doses or for trained staff to perform for it from local religious and society leaders Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the vaccinations and issue certificates to adult on the ground has been, at best, lukewarm. In northwest (see ‘Dangerous rebound’). Here, travellers at public hospitals. the 1980s and 90s, warring factions in Latin access for polio-vaccination teams is severely So far, the only service offered for free to America and in Africa agreed to ‘days of tran- restricted by conflict and insecurity. travellers is the oral vaccine from the sup- quility’ to permit mass polio immunizations. Since mid-June, the situation has wors- plies of national polio programmes. (Some In Pakistan, by contrast, a handful of Taliban ened. In the wake of government military 300 million doses of oral polio vaccine, mostly leaders in the tribal areas of North Waziristan action against Taliban insurgents, more furnished by the United Nations children’s and the Khyber Agency have, since mid-2012, than 800,000 people from Waziristan in the charity UNICEF, are needed annually to vac- denied entry to vaccination teams as a protest FATA have been displaced to neighbouring cinate young children in Pakistan.) Pakistan’s against US drone strikes. parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Instead of army requested 60,000 doses of inactivated In May this year, the Pakistani army focusing on the vaccination of international injectable polio vaccine as a priority for its moved to provide security to vaccination travellers, Pakistan, the WHO and immu- troops. Adults must buy this type of vaccine teams in the FATA, but it has not offered nization services should provide immediate privately at a cost of $4.30 per dose — a huge support to other mainstream health workers. health care to displaced families and others expense in an area where the average monthly This and the hastily imposed travel regula- in these high-risk areas. income is about $100. Newspapers report that tions will only give credence to claims that getting a vaccination certificate is as difficult polio eradication is part of a foreign agenda. PRECIOUS DOSES and expensive as getting a visa. An industry Federal and provincial governments in of fake certification could emerge. PRESCRIPTION PACKAGE Pakistan have scrambled to set up vaccination There is no precedent to predict how well Providing polio vaccines as part of a package points at all ports and airports, and at more these travel restrictions will work. I travelled of health services is a better way to engage than 130 public hospitals. The government of out of Karachi airport on 6 and 15 June. local communities and religious leaders than Punjab, Pakistan’s richest and most populous Although vaccination counters had been set through a narrow, polio-specific programme. province, also rushed to impose vaccination up, I saw no queues of travellers waiting to Nigeria and Afghanistan have made remark- requirements for the main routes of entry. The receive polio vaccines, and no one asked me able progress in reaching difficult populations federal government made polio vaccination for a vaccination card at any of the multiple in this way, and cases dropped by about 60% mandatory at major entry and exit points in checkpoints. Furthermore, polio transmis- in both nations from 2012 to 20134. The Tali- the FATA, especially in North Waziristan, sion from Pakistan to Afghanistan occurs ban do not actively keep children from being although much of the long, troubled border mostly across an unregulated border. immunized for measles or from receiving care with Afghanistan is unpatrolled. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s efforts to vaccinate for diarrhoea or malnutrition. Official sources estimate that more than young children have fallen behind. Some of Currently, Pakistan has one of the high- 10 million doses are needed just for the the blame can be pinned on the ill-planned est rates of child mortality in south Asia6. 286 | NATURE | VOL 511 | 17 JULY 2014 | CORRECTED ONLINE 16 JULY 2014 © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved COMMENT Children face much bigger health threats than polio. But immunization services for major childhood diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus and measles remain plagued with inefficiencies, poor over- sight and a shortage of resources. Full immunization rates for children ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID PARKINS DAVID BY ILLUSTRATION in the country were last year estimated at 54% with wide variations across the country7, compared to more than 95% in nearby Bangladesh. The figures for Paki- stan may even be an overestimate: the survey excluded the FATA and vulnerable populations in mega-cities. In a household survey conducted this year, my colleagues and I found that 25% of children under five years in the urban slums of Karachi were not vaccinated for any childhood dis- ease; the same was true for 64% of children in a relatively peaceful district of the FATA.