Polio mess.

THE outgoing year has proved a devastating one for the anti-polio campaign. As 2019 progressed, reports about the number of polio cases and the mismanagement of the campaign itself went from bad to worse. At least 119 cases have been reported so far, making the previous year's tally of 12 look almost paltry by comparison. What is also unnerving are the reports of the large number of children who were missed in the vaccination drives. Health authorities in Sindh have revealed that out of the 9m children targeted in the recent polio drive earlier in the month, some 297,000 children were not vaccinated against the crippling disease.

The highest number of children who were not administered the vaccine were from Larkana division, followed by Hyderabad division, Shaheed Benazirabad and then Mirpurkhas. Though the number of children may not seem that high given the target of 9m, there are reasons why the matter should still be of concern. The first is that polio officials in Sindh had claimed at the conclusion of the immunisation drive that they had achieved '101pc coverage'. In fact, this puzzling assertion...