- WHO had declared earlier this year that the international-spread of naturally occurring wild polioviruses constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
- 60% of the polio cases in 2013 were due to the spreading of the virus to other countries and adult travelers had contributed towards the same.
- Pakistan, Cameroon, Syria and Equatorial Guinea were categorized as State that were exporting wild viruses and were directed to take measures including vaccinating international travelers.
- Many health experts in Pakistan believe:
- In the presence of porous and unregulated land routes, vaccination of air travelers at arrival will not help control the spread and may in fact turn problematic and divert attention as well as human and financial resources from the actual issue.
- Focus should be on providing routine health care and immunizing children over among over 8lakh people displaced by the military offensive against the Taliban in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where polio vaccination teams had been denied access.
- Other experts believe that both the issues – routine health services and immunization of travellers to minimize the risk of exportation of the virus – need to be done and this has in fact minimized the risk of spread.
- Read at:http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sci-tech-and-agri/polio-vaccination-of-travellers-from-pakistan-ineffective/article6218815.ece