Excellencies, ambassadors, distinguished guests, partners in the polio eradication initiative, ladies and gentlemen,
I thank the United Arab Emirates for hosting this event and, above all, for showing such steadfast commitment to polio eradication worldwide, including in Pakistan.
For a long time, the eradication initiative talked about the number of children being protected from polio. Today we talk about the number of children being missed. This tells us something about how much the polio map has shrunk and how greatly the number of cases has dwindled.
I thank partners in the eradication initiative, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for taking us so close to our goal.
Against this backdrop of steady and impressive progress, Pakistan stands out as the last major stronghold of wild poliovirus and the biggest challenge to polio eradication worldwide.
We have good reason to believe that this situation can change. Since the start of this year, Pakistan has made some notable improvements in its polio programme.
The use of more women and community vaccinators is an important innovation. Many more children are being reached in previously inaccessible areas. Children displaced by conflict are being vaccinated as their families flee through transit points or settle in safer communities.
Environmental surveillance for the virus is helping to identify high-risk areas for a more proactive response. I strongly encourage the country’s leaders to maintain this recent and most welcome momentum. Again, I thank all polio partners and the UAE for continuing their support.
The immediate victims of the polio situation in Pakistan are the children that are missed, the children left unprotected and vulnerable. We have a second reason to be concerned. What happens in this country determines whether the global polio eradication initiative succeeds or fails, whether the billions of dollars invested to date deliver a polio-free world or count for nothing.
To state the problem simply: too many children are still being missed. Pakistan is far from reaching every last child. The reasons why this is happening are complex. The country faces a number of unique challenges.
But these challenges must be addressed. Recent successes, in Pakistan as well as elsewhere, owe much to innovations that cracked seemingly intractable problems.
To turn things around, urgent action is needed on three fronts: commitment, community, and security.
As we have learned from Pakistan’s distinguished Deputy Ambassador, polio eradication is overseen by the country’s Prime Minister. This is the only social programme overseen at such a high level.
Emergency Operations Centres are now functioning not only in the capital but also in the provinces. These centres have improved coordination of the response and reinforced the sense of urgent emergency.
WHO has committed to a surge in support staff in collaboration with UNICEF. These staff will help sharpen the focus of immunization campaigns on missed children and collect and analyze the right data quickly.
To signal country ownership and commitment to oversight, the Prime Minister’s Task Force needs to convene regularly to monitor progress. The Emergency Operations Centres must prove that they are effective as well as functional.
Communities are the second front for emergency action. The overwhelming majority of parents in Pakistan want their children vaccinated. It is in the pockets of resistance that the campaigns stumble.
Resistance is seen in communities where parents lack trust. They may be suspicious of the vaccine or the motives of the vaccinators. They may question the real purpose of a campaign solely focused on polio when other health needs are so numerous.
All of these problems can be solved. As we learned in West Africa, when community concerns are heard and respected, attitudes and behaviours can change.
In Pakistan, the National Islamic Advisory Group performs an especially important role. Its clerics and scholars command community respect. WHO will continue to provide technical support to back up religious messages.
Health camps are another innovation that wins community trust by offering interventions for multiple health problems. I encourage their even greater use in Pakistan.
Security is the third front for urgent action. Here, too, we see how recent innovations in Pakistan are working to tailor operations to the realities of the security threat.
Simultaneous one-day campaigns in different parts of the country are harder to target for attack. Vaccination by local female volunteers has reduced the need for armed security guards in Gadap, Karachi. Military support in North and South Waziristan, backed by UAE forces, has helped tackle a stubborn reservoir of the virus.
These problems can be addressed. But doing so sometimes comes at a very heavy cost, measured in lives lost while trying to help. Since the first attack on a polio worker occurred in Pakistan in July 2012, more than 70 health workers and those protecting them have been killed.
Since then, and under a constant cloud of more life-threatening violence, health workers have courageously delivered more than half a billion doses of vaccine to Pakistan’s children.
The Pakistani people and their leaders must take great pride in this demonstration of courage, commitment, and compassion.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We will see in the video clip the crippling damage and grief caused by the polio virus. As world headlines tell us nearly every day, humanity has very few opportunities to improve the world in a permanent way. This is one.
We have no time to lose, especially with so much at stake. The high season for polio transmission is approaching.
A detailed plan to free Pakistan from polio is in place. I urge all engaged in this global effort to help Pakistan implement the plan, with dedication and determination, down to the last detail.
Rest assured that WHO is here to support you.
Thank you.