Anti-polio drive faltering
Efforts to eradicate polio from Pakistan have been dealt yet another blow at a time when fresh cases from all over the country are creating fear. All the campaigns conducted over the years have depended on mostly female vaccinators and Lady Health Workers (LHW’s) to administer the drops. They are poorly paid for what has become dangerous work and dozens have been killed by those that oppose the vaccination drives. It is now reported that LHW’s who were due to carry out the latest drive are boycotting the campaign on the reasonable grounds that they have not been paid for the past three months. Furthermore, about 300,000 children in North and South Waziristan and parts of the Khyber Agency are going to miss their drops because of the poor security situation. The boycott means that the 2.8 million children who were the target group may miss being vaccinated, but the LHW’s are adamant they will not begin work unless they are paid.
There are 16,300 vaccinators, most of them from poor families. They are dependent on their meagre salaries to feed their families; and they rightly point out that they can hardly be expected to care for the children of others when they cannot feed their own. Considering that the number of cases of polio reported this year in Pakistan far exceeds that of last year and 85 of the 117 reported cases were from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, it is grossly incompetent of the administration to delay the pay of the very people who are in the front line of the battle for its eradication. If you do not pay your troops in the end they will mutiny, and that is precisely what the LHW’s have done. Eradicating polio appears ever further from the national grasp, and it is occurrences such as this which are entirely the making of the local and provincial administrations, that are going to prolong the persistence of this crippling and preventable disease in Pakistan. It is an abdication of collective civic responsibility to the detriment of the children of the nation, to say nothing of its effect on our international standing. Pay the LHW’s what they are owed and get the anti-polio campaign back on track.
Ukraine simmers
The struggle for control of Ukraine has moved into yet another phase. At the heart of the conflict is whether Ukraine aligns with the west and Nato; or the east and the resurgent Russia that is attempting to turn the tide of history and re-boot the Soviet era — sans Communism. Ukrainian government forces have retaken much of the territory that was held by pro-Russian separatists who were seeking what in effect was a partition of the country. Russia has now made a direct intervention in the form of a convoy of about 260 trucks loaded with what it claims are items of humanitarian aid. Eventually the convoy delivered its cargoes and swiftly left the country without further incident, with Russia deaf to claims of a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.
The Ukrainian government in Kiev has termed the Russian action ‘a direct invasion’; and it is certain to complicate the peace talks that were due to begin on August 26 in Minsk between Ukrainian president Poroshenko and president Putin. Leaders of the Western powers supporting the Kiev government have been vocal in their condemnation of the Russian move but in reality can do little or nothing about it. Equally ineffectual is the UN Security Council. The US warned of ‘additional consequences’ if Russia does not remove the convoy — a further irrelevance as the Russians removed it themselves. Sanctions have already been imposed on Russia as a consequence of its support for the separatists — sometimes with bizarre consequences. The closure of four outlets of a global fast-food chain in Moscow and a boycott by Russia of Polish apples being but two. Since the Russian takeover of the Crimea earlier in the year the Bear has become ever more muscular, and is rumoured to have eyed up the possibility of taking under its paw the Baltic States, once a part of the Soviet empire. Ultimately the struggle is about control of valuable natural resources, and the outcome uncertain.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 27th, 2014.