Father refusing polio drops ends up getting vaccinated himself

SKARDU: Skardu Assistant Commissioner (AC) persuaded a father who had refused to administer polio drops to his five-year-old son, and gave the drops to both the father and the child.

According to the District Health Officer (DHO), around 38,000 children were vaccinated across the district as part of the campaign, which received remarkable cooperation from local communities.

However, during the drive, a resident of Ghanche district initially refused to let his son be vaccinated. The AC intervened, convincing the man by personally taking the drops himself before administering them to the child.

Officials said the gesture aimed to reassure the father that the polio vaccine was completely safe and harmless. The father later admitted his mistake, saying it was wrong of him to deny his son the polio drops.

The nationwide polio eradication campaign, which started from October 13-19, involves over 400,000 health workers, who will go door-to-door to ensure that every eligible child receives the vaccine. 

The NEOC urged parents to ensure that all children under five years of age are vaccinated against polio and that routine immunisation courses for children up to 15 months are completed on time.

The total number of polio cases in the country for 2025 has jumped to 29, with two cases reported on September 29 from Sindh.

Of the total 29 polio cases reported nationwide, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa tops the list with 18 cases, Sindh has nine, while Punjab and Azad Jammu and Kashmir have one each.

Pakistan is one of the two polio-endemic countries in the world, along with Afghanistan. The country was close to eradicating the crippling disease in 2021, after a significant drop in the number of cases, until the recent spike in cases.

Last year, the country reported a total of 74 polio cases. Of these, 27 were from Balochistan, 23 from Sindh, 22 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.

Polio is a paralysing disease with no cure, and the completion of the routine vaccination for all children under the age of five just provides them with high immunity against this terrible disease.