ISLAMABAD – A draft bill has been prepared to criminalise polio refusal cases or spread of negative propaganda against the vaccination in the capital territory and the provinces would also be urged to follow the federal government and take steps according to their needs to eradicate the disease. 
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister and Prime Minister’s Focal Person on Polio Eradication, Shahnaz Wazir Ali shared the information while addressing the media persons along with parliamentarians on the launch of a three-day polio campaign.
Shahnaz Wazir Ali said other countries have also taken such steps to control the disease, few countries have framed such legislations criminalising the act and some have made it mandatory for the schools to check immunisation cards before giving admissions to the children in schools.
She said after 18 Amendment the provinces have to decide whether they want to bring any legislation on the subject or not as health has been devolved to the provinces. She said in a couple of weeks the federal government has planed a meeting with the provinces in this regard to decide whether they want to bring legislation or take other steps to control the crippling disease.
Shahnaz Wazir Ali termed recent floods, inaccessibility, war on terror and mobility of people due to ongoing war the major reasons of the failure of the polio eradication in Pakistan. She said due to ongoing war 30 lac people have been displaced and to reach out to them is a big problem for the vaccination teams.
She said the routine immunization campaigns have not been very affective and the data of deaths and births of the population is also not maintained in the country that is another issue.  
She accepted that the district teams could not perform their duties well and people under the age of 18 were inducted in the teams that caused lack of trust among people.
She said in KPK women were not inducted in the teams that also increased the number of refusal cases. She also admitted that conducting of fake vaccination campaign for hepatitis by CIA to hunt Osama Bin Ladin was also a major set back for the polo campaign. She condemned the act of using the name of health programme for their vested interest. 
The parliamentarians who also addressed the press conference stressed the need of involvement of political representatives in the campaigns and better monitoring and accountability of the polio eradication programme.
MNA Dr. Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said in 2005 Pakistan was about to eradicate the disease as total 30 cases were detected in Pakistan but again in 2011 the country reported 198 cases. He said 60 percent of the cases of the world are reported from Pakistan and now the neighboring countries have been blaming Pakistan for exporting the disease to their countries.
The MNA clarified that the rumors regarding the authenticity of the vaccines are baseless. Though, if exposed to high temperature the vaccine can loss its potency but it cannot cause other diseases or side affects.
He said though, there is an issue of accessibility in few areas but in Punjab last year total eight cases were reported and in all those areas there is no issue of accessibility.
MNA Asiya Nasir of Jamiat Ulma-e-Islam JUI (F) while explaining about the main issues of failure of campaign in Balochistan from where the highest number of cases were reported last year, said to reach out to the children of far-flung areas is one of the main causes of failure as there is no transportation or communication system in that areas.
She said 198 percent increase was witnessed in the cases of polio in Balochistan and the districts including Quetta, Pishin and K. Abdullah from where the cases were reported have stable situation in terms of law and order as compared to other areas. 
She explained that in few areas the teams travel on camels and it takes quite a long time to reach there that affects the potency of the vaccine. 
She was of the view that unhygienic conditions and lack of any proper sewerage system also helps spread the poliovirus.
MNA Akhonzada Chiton said people of FATA love their children and want to give them education and health facilities but negative propaganda by the vested interests misguided them and they refused to give their children education and administer polio drops fearing infertility among their women and other side affects.
 He called for the need to educate the people of FATA and Balochistan and create an extensive awareness campaigns to dispel the misconceptions. 
MNA Hamayun Saifullah Khan, MNA Shakeel Awan ,Senator Syeda Iqbal, MNA Kamaran  Khan of ANP  also spoke on the occasion.
Meanwhile, the first round of 2012 Sub-National Immunization Days (SNIDs) campaign started from Monday in the selected districts/agencies of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, FATA and Islamabad.
It important to be stated that Pakistan has reported 12 polio cases during the current year; two cases from Quetta district in Balochistan, one each from districts Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad in Sindh, one case each from Peshawar, Lakki Marwat, DI Khan and Kohat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, two cases from Khyber Agency and one case from North Waziristan in FATA and one case from Jhang in Punjab.