This has been a tough week for Rotary and polio has also had many challenges.
Pakistan in the last two weeks has seen four polio workers killed, the federal health minister sacked, the head of the federal polio emergency operating center replaced and a propaganda campaign against the program that involved fake illnesses to fake polio vaccines that led to a hysteria that led 10s of thousands of children to needlessly go to hospitals. As the week's NID was wrapping up, the follow up quality assessments and other activities were suspended due to concern about worker safety and the general instability especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). Much of this may be in the context of local elections that are due to occur next month and which always lead to troublemakers trying to show that the current government is incompetent.
Aziz has spent much of the week in Peshawar and along the border with Afghanistan. He has met with key officials, with families of the slain and has inaugurated expanded facilities on the border at Torkham to accommodate all age vaccinations. I spoke to him an hour ago and he continues to do all that is humanly possible to help address the many situations that are ongoing.
There are conflicting reports in the media regarding a decision to suspend the NID related activities. I encourage you to google Pakistan polio and to read some of the news accounts.
There are also two new polio cases in the lab in Pakistan which will be in the official count next week. We had three new cases in Afghanistan last week which are in the official count. Thus we have gone from 9 to 12 officially with two more now known.
The next rounds are not due until after Ramadan which gives us a couple of months to regroup and strategize.
I always like to also mention some positive points but it is difficult. We did have one important environmental site this week evolve from positive to no evidence of polio. Second, Dr. Tedros will announce shortly a new polio leader in the EMRO region to replace Chris Maher who is retiring. The person he will announce has been a great leader in polio eradication who has longstanding appreciation for Rotary's role.
Afghanistan also is at a bad point this week. The Taliban shut down all immunizations in their area of control. They had earlier banned house to house and now have evolved to all immunizations. Tremendous effort is now underway to reverse this action.
All is good in the AFRO region with no new wild polio cases. We do have some vaccine derived cases and they are being addressed.
So my message to Rotarians this week is to emphasize our long term progress, to highlight African progress, to indicate that we have some current challenges in Pakistan and Afghanistan which are being addressed by our Rotary leaders there and to indicate that support is needed to bring us over the finish line.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best regards,
Michael K. McGovern