KARACHI: In a recent report, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) for polio expressed concerns about the quality, reliability, capacity and authenticity of surveillance data from the polio program in Pakistan.
The country has been urged to revisit the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) to identify gaps. A striking observation is the number of children still missed during immunization rounds.
“The Polio Program’s performance in the last three seasons (covering 15 immunization rounds) is revealing,” the report said.
“In Pakistan, even after attempts to go back to communities to find the children who had been missed, the approximate numbers unvaccinated were: 767,000 (low season 2016); 760,000 (high season 2016); 858,000 (low season 2017).”
Karachi
Health Department officials say the metropolitan city of Karachi is in the most vulnerable situation when it comes to polio proliferation.
Dr. Fazlullah Pechuho, secretary of the Health Department in Sindh province, said the department is aware of the emergency.
“Every month, 5,000 people come to Karachi from different parts of the country and from Afghanistan. They’re a guest population. We don’t know whether their children are properly immunized or not,” he told Arab News.
“In Karachi alone, there are 50,000 missing children, which means we have no trace of their immunization.”
Pechuho said no one should be allowed to enter the city unless they are immunized. “People have to take responsibility for their children. Parents should be penalized for refusing immunization. Their ID cards should be blocked.”
An official who has been working with the polio team in Pakistan since 1999, and who supervises a team of 80 workers in Karachi, told Arab News on condition of anonymity: “We haven’t been able to track children who are carrying the polio virus. It’s a moving population from the tribal belt of Pakistan that comes to Karachi during winters and goes back during summers.”
Ground support
“Workers fighting the virus have no support on the ground,” the official said. “They’re not respected in society. People don’t let them vaccinate. They face death threats and are paid a pittance, without food and transport.”
He added: “I see well-paid officers who sit in air-conditioned rooms, but those who are fighting on the ground have nothing. We’re warriors with empty hands.”
He continued: “If we make polio vaccination certificates compulsory for all education admissions, and even for passports and national ID cards, people will start taking the campaign seriously. The government has to make stringent laws.”
Lack of awareness
Health worker Sajida Kazi said the major challenge in eradicating polio in Pakistan is lack of awareness.
Those who refuse vaccination for their children “believe it’s a conspiracy hatched by our enemies to destroy us. They also make it a religious issue, that the medicine has ingredients that are un-Islamic,” Kazi told Arab News. “We need support from our religious scholars and national heroes to create awareness.”
But Christopher Maher, manager of polio eradication and emergency support at the World Health Organization (WHO), said the IMB report shows a decline in the estimated number of missed children.
“It’s worth noting that the number of children still missed in each round (of vaccination) comes to less than 3 percent of the estimated target population of children under five years of age for the country,” he said.
Global initiative
The GPEI, a public-private partnership, was launched in 1988, and has invested more than $14 billion via the WHO and UNICEF to support polio eradication activities in more than 70 countries.
In 2011, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, announced a partnership that made a combined donation of $100 million to buy and deliver vaccines to children in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In 2013, the UAE hosted the inaugural Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi, where Sheikh Mohammed committed another $120 million between 2013 and 2018 to fight the disease.
Pakistan still struggling to eradicate polio
Pakistan still struggling to eradicate polio
Pope Francis to visit French island of Corsica on Dec. 15, local church says
- Short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming pope in 2013
- Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.% Catholic
The short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio, where Francis is expected to speak at a conference on popular religiosity across the Mediterranean region, will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming pope in 2013.
Corsica, noted for its steep, mountainous terrain and as the birthplace of Napoleon, is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of France’s poorest regions, with government statistics estimating that about 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
The Vatican did not immediately confirm the local church’s announcement, but the trip is known to have been in preparation for weeks. Francis has made two prior visits to France, traveling to Strasbourg in 2014 to address the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, and to Marseilles in 2023 to attend a meeting of bishops.
But the pope, who turns 88 on Dec. 17, has never made a full state visit to France, a historic stronghold for Catholicism that is now widely secular and home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities.
French President Emmanuel Macron invited Francis to come to Paris for the Dec. 8 reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, but the pope will be leading a ceremony at the Vatican that day to install new Catholic cardinals.
Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo, originally from Spain, has led the Catholic Church in Corsica since 2021. Francis made him a cardinal, the highest rank in the Church below pope, in 2023.
Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.5 percent Catholic.
Francis has traveled widely around the Mediterranean over his 11-year papacy, visiting Malta, the Greek island of Lesbos and the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Record 281 aid workers killed in 2024, says UN, with 1 month left
- 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023
Geneva: A staggering 281 aid workers have been killed around the world so far this year, making 2024 the deadliest year for humanitarians, the UN aid chief said Friday.
“Humanitarian workers are being killed at an unprecedented rate, their courage and humanity being met with bullets and bombs,” said Tom Fletcher, the United Nations’ new under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
With more than a month left to go of 2024, the “grim milestone was reached,” he said, after 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023.
“This violence is unconscionable and devastating to aid operations,” Fletcher said.
Israel’s devastating war in Gaza was driving up the numbers, his office said, with 333 aid workers killed there — most from the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA — since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks, which sparked the war.
“States and parties to conflict must protect humanitarians, uphold international law, prosecute those responsible, and call time on this era of impunity,” Fletcher said.
Aid workers were subject to kidnappings, injuries, harassment and arbitrary detention in a range of countries, his office said, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Ukraine.
The majority of deaths involve local staff working with non-governmental organizations, UN agencies and the Red Cross Red Crescent movement, Fletcher’s office said.
“Violence against humanitarian personnel is part of a broader trend of harm to civilians in conflict zones,” it warned.
“Last year, more than 33,000 civilian deaths were recorded in 14 armed conflicts — a staggering 72 percent increase from 2022.”
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution last May in response to the surging violence and threats against aid workers.
The text called for recommendations from the UN chief — set to be presented at a council meeting next week — on measures to prevent and respond to such incidents and to increase protection for humanitarian staff and accountability for abuses.
Russia says ‘derailed’ Kyiv’s war plans after uproar over test strike
- Vladimir Putin says the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a ‘global’ nature
- NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike
KYIV: Russia said on Friday it had scuppered Kyiv’s military objectives for 2025 just after President Vladimir Putin issued a warning to the West by test-firing a new intermediate-range missile at Ukraine.
That assessment for next year came after a Russian drone attack at night on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed two civilians and wounded a dozen more in an attack with new cluster munitions, local authorities said.
Putin announced the missile launch in a defiant address late on Thursday, saying the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a “global” nature, while hinting at strikes on Western countries.
In a meeting with military commanders, Russian defense minister Andrei Belousov said Moscow’s advance had “accelerated” in Ukraine and “ground down” Kyiv’s best units.
“We have, in fact, derailed the entire 2025 campaign,” Belousov said of the Ukrainian army in a video published by the Russian defense ministry.
The attack, which apparently targeted an aerospace manufacturing plant in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, sparked immediate condemnation from Kyiv’s allies.
China, which has thrown its political clout behind the Kremlin, reiterated calls for “calm” and “restraint” by all parties after Russia confirmed the new missile strike.
“All parties should remain calm and exercise restraint, work to de-escalate the situation through dialogue and consultation, and create conditions for an early ceasefire,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meanwhile, on Friday described Russia’s deployment of the medium-range missile as a “terrible escalation.”
NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike, according to diplomats.
Ambassadors from countries in the NATO-Ukraine Council will hold talks on Tuesday. The meeting was called by Kyiv following the Dnipro strike, officials said.
The Russian attack came after Ukraine recently fired US- and UK-supplied missiles at Russian territory for the first time, escalating already sky-high tensions over the conflict, which is nearly in its third year.
Washington said it had granted Kyiv permission to fire long-range weapons at Russian territory as a response to the Kremlin’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops on Ukraine’s border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a strong response from world leaders to Russia’s use of the new missile, which he said proved Moscow “does not want peace.”
In Kyiv, Oleksandra, a 30-year-old resident working in the media, said the Russian strike was a sign of desperation within the Kremlin.
“You could have launched a missile that is less expensive and have the same result. As long as this missile does not carry a nuclear payload, there is nothing to fear about,” she said.
Russian troops have been making steady advances in eastern Ukraine for months, capturing a string of small towns and villages from overstretched Ukrainian soldiers lacking manpower and artillery.
In the city of Sumy, authorities said a Russian drone had struck a residential neighborhood. Emergency services distributed images showing rescue workers retrieving the bodies of the dead from the rubble.
Sumy lies across the border from Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops captured swathes of territory after launching a major ground offensive in August.
The head of the Sumy region, Volodymyr Artyukh, said Russia had deployed a drone with modified munitions that were equipped with shrapnel, describing the weapons as being “used to kill people, not to destroy buildings.”
Indian commandos kill 10 Maoist rebels
- More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement
- Gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency
RAIPUR, India: Indian security forces gunned down at least 10 Maoist rebels on Friday during a firefight, police said, as New Delhi steps up efforts to crush the long-running armed conflict.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized Indigenous people of India’s remote and resource-rich central regions.
The gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency.
“Dead bodies of 10 Maoists have been recovered so far,” Vivekanand Sinha, chief of the state police’s anti-Maoist operations, said.
Sinha said the police recovered several automatic weapons from the rebels.
India’s home minister Amit Shah this year issued an ultimatum to the insurgents to surrender or face an “all-out assault.”
A crackdown by security forces has killed over 200 rebels this year, an overwhelming majority in Chhattisgarh, according to government data.
India has deployed tens of thousands of security personnel to battle the Maoists across the insurgent-dominated “Red Corridor,” which stretches across central, southern and eastern states but has shrunk dramatically in size.
India has pumped millions of dollars into infrastructure development in remote areas and claims to have confined the insurgency to 45 districts in 2023, down from 96 in 2010.
The conflict has seen a number of deadly attacks on government forces over the years. Twenty-two police and paramilitaries were killed in a gunbattle with the far-left guerrillas in 2021.
Sixteen commandos were also killed in the western state of Maharashtra in a bomb attack that was blamed on the Maoists in the lead-up to national elections in 2019.
Second Australian dies after suspected Laos alcohol poisoning
- A total of six foreign tourists have now died of suspected methanol poisoning in a backpacker hotspot in northern Laos
SYDNEY: A second young Australian tourist has died after apparently ingesting tainted alcohol while on holiday in Laos, Canberra’s foreign minister said Friday.
“All Australians will be heartbroken by the tragic passing of Holly Bowles,” Penny Wong said in a statement. “Just yesterday, Holly lost her best friend, Bianca Jones.”
“I know tonight all Australians will be holding both families in our hearts,” the foreign minister added.
A total of six foreign tourists have now died of suspected methanol poisoning in a backpacker hotspot in northern Laos.
They were from Australia, Britain, Denmark and the United States.
Many of the victims were in their teens or early twenties and fell sick after a night out in Vang Vieng.
Australian officials are now pressing Laotian authorities for a full and transparent investigation into what happened.
Alcohol tainted with methanol is suspected to be the cause of death.
Methanol is a toxic alcohol used in industrial and household products like antifreeze, photocopier fluids, de-icers, paint thinner, varnish and windshield wiper fluid.
Despite being toxic to humans, it is sometimes used in cheaply made home brew.
