KARACHI: Raising alarm over multiple outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases and deaths of a large number of children across the country, health experts said on 4th January that these precious lives could have been easily saved if the governments at the federal and provincial levels had taken timely measures and plugged the loopholes in the routine immunisation programme.
Representing major tertiary care private and public sector hospitals, the experts also said the health crisis continued in the country with a spike in cases of measles and other infectious diseases.
They were speaking at a press conference organised by the Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Society of Pakistan (MMIDSP) here at the Karachi Press Club.
They appealed to the government to take urgent measures to contain the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases — measles, diphtheria and polio — as well as rabies by strengthening routine immunisation and ensuring provision of clean drinking water and proper disposal of waste and sewage.
“There is an urgent need for action. We appeal to both public and private sector stakeholders to make immunisation a priority and implement robust strategies to address the ongoing crisis,” said President MMIDSP Dr Summiya Nizamuddin, pointing out that the reporting of polio cases in unvaccinated pockets and the consistent contamination of environmental samples with the virus strain in sewage posed significant challenges.
Dr Nizamuddin called for more political and social commitment to eradicate polio through full vaccination coverage and chlorination of potable water to break transmission and ensure access to safe drinking water.
The experts rejected the government data on immunisation and said that the country wouldn’t have been seeing so many outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, if 80 percent to 90pc children were fully immunised.
Shortage of life-saving drugs
The experts regretted that the state had failed not only in protecting children from vaccine-preventable diseases but also in providing adequate supplies of life-saving drugs, including diphtheria antitoxin and rabies immunoglobulin, resulting in loss of lives.
“We have been seeing an increasing number of diphtheria patients only for the past two years. Many hospitals are forced to decline treatment to these patients due to non-availability of the antitoxin that’s hard to find in the market,” Dr Samreen Sarfaraz said, adding that diphtheria was a serious bacterial infection with a high mortality rate.
Sharing how the absence of an effective dog population control programme is affecting public health in Pakistan, Dr Naseem Salahuddin said that the lack of waste management was directly linked to increase in dog population and that 500,000 dog-bite cases occurred in Sindh alone in 2023.
“The lack of dog population control and mass vaccination programme are leading to preventable deaths from rabies, a disease with 100pc fatality after onset,” she stated, while urging the city mayor to make Karachi liveable for its people by improving its sanitation system.
To a question about the flaws in the immunisation programme, Dr Ali Faisal Saleem said that the state could improve it by making routine immunisation mandatory for school enrolment or linking it with the tax registration, or the database of the National Database and Registration Authority.
About the efficacy of vaccines, he said: “All vaccines available in Pakistan are of good quality. The problem is we are persistently failing to reach all children. The vaccines are effective even if a child is malnourished.”
Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2025
