In Pakistan and more specifically in the districts of KPK, polio vaccination teams enter a world where it is not known what to expect on every single step. Armed with a small cold box in their hands, and determination in their hearts, they trod the narrow alleys, mountain villages and tensed neighbourhoods whereby intuition due to rumours and fear is usually the barrier between them and the children they must get to. But they appear daily, and not because their work is simple, but because they have heard that two drops can transform the whole future of a child.
The risks are active and immediate in areas such as KPK where uncertainty has been a years-long issue. Threat by extremists and violent attacks have been meted to polio workers. People who are surrounded by security staff to administer their vaccines have also died in the course of protecting the vaccinators. Such frontline teams work knowing that any ordinary knock on the door can become uncontrollable. Nevertheless, they do it because safeguarding kids is more to them than the fear that they possess.
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The strength of these workers even in the face of the challenges. Others are mostly women, who are entering into the world of the public where they do not necessarily have permission to be there, but are becoming the most reliable communication between the health system and the family. They bang on doors where they had been rejected and they do not come back angry but patiently. their sympathy serves to overthrow the falsehoods that have forever clouded communities; trust is not built up, however, by posters, or by announcements, but by those talks which occur in simple small village rooms.
It is also important how bold the police and security teams that accompany such teams are. They ride areas with high-risk, guard volatile villages and have taken the risk silently to allow vaccinators to pursue their work. Their deaths create an intangible barrier to save millions of children that will never get to learn their names.
This is not merely a vaccination campaign, but a national resilience effort. Each of the children who is vaccinated in a distant valley of KPK, each of the families that has finally opened its door, and each of the workers that goes to work already, despite having experienced a traumatic experience before, reminds us of how human this mission is. The destruction of polio is not a medical issue only but a challenge of faith, boldness and sacrifice.
The polio workers are not just health personnel in Pakistan but are the saviors of the future of the country as well. It is their courage that is worth admiring, complementing and never-ending applause. These frontline heroes are a strong reminder in a fight where a disease that should be prevented is still present and threatening to children that hope is usually the quietest thing and it comes in wearing a simple vest, holding a vaccine box, and knocking on the door of an unknown person.
