QUETTA: A two-day sculpture competition held in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province ahead of World Polio Day today, Monday, commemorated annually on October 24, aimed to increase public awareness about a virus that has paralyzed at least 20 children in Pakistan since the beginning of the year.
Polio is a highly infectious disease spread mainly through contamination by faecal matter, which kills and paralyses thousands of children annually. While there is no known cure, three injections of the vaccine provide nearly 100% immunity.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio is still endemic despite immunization drives that have been ongoing for decades. The disruption of vaccine drives due to the coronavirus pandemic has raised fears of a spike in polio cases in Pakistan.
Last week, global leaders committed $2.6 billion in funding at the World Health Summit, the World Health Organization said, to support global efforts to overcome the final hurdles to polio eradication, vaccinate 370 million children annually over the next five years and continue disease surveillance across 50 countries.
The polio Emergency Operation Cell (EOC) of Balochistan organized a sculpture competition last Friday and Saturday, inviting university students to create provocative art pieces to raise awareness about the disease. The government of Balochistan has also launched a five-day anti-polio campaign in 19 districts of the province to administer drops to 1.7 million children under the age of five.
A sculpture designed to create awareness about polio is displayed at a two-day art competition in Quetta, Pakistan, on October 22, 2022. (Photo courtesy: Emergency Operation Center, Balochistan)
“The students made some beautiful sculptures depicting the importance of anti-polio vaccinations and the deprivation a polio-infected person could face in the society due to the physical disability,” EOC coordinator Syed Zahid Shah told Arab News on Saturday.
Insecurity and misinformation are widespread in Pakistan and offer challenges to authorities trying to reach every child who needs the polio vaccine. Militants have often targeted and killed polio vaccinators in the South Asia nation.
“The competition has given a positive message to society where many parents are still reluctant to vaccinate their children with anti-polio drops,” he said. “We will display these sculptures in government offices and other educational institutes to give awareness to the masses.”
Speaking to Arab News, sculptor Fatima Zahra said she decided to contribute her work to the competition since she wanted to save the country’s future generations from the lifelong disability caused by the virus.
“The competition being held here is about polio, so that people can be made aware, they can be told about polio and how we can eradicate this disease so that our children, our people, can stand on their feet and do not have to face disability,” Zahra said.
“Majority of students have made these sculptures with fiberglass and some of the participants have made 3D surface sculptures to give the message of polio eradication to the world.”
Qandeel Rajput, who secured top position in the competition, said he had made a sculpture of a man who, himself infected by the virus, was administering anti-polio drops to a child.
“We have shown a disabled man who, though himself wheelchair-bound, is trying to do something good for Pakistani children and their future,” Rajput said. “He does not want the children of Pakistan to suffer what he suffered.”
Provincial health officials told Arab News recent floods in the country that had caused over 1,700 deaths and infrastructure damage in the billions had made it difficult to resume anti-polio campaigns since many towns and cities were still submerged and people had relocated to safer areas.
“The flood water has receded in many areas and our teams, comprising 6,700 workers, will reach out to every single union council in the 19 districts,” EOC coordinator Shah said. “We have planned to vaccinate people living in their villages or along highways in flood-hit districts.”
He said samples collected from sewerage water at various locations in high-risk districts of Balochistan had tested negative in April and the province had not reported even a single polio case since January.
Last month, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met American business tycoon and philanthropist Bill Gates on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York to discuss the challenge of running the anti-polio campaign in the country due to recent floods. Gates, who has massively investing in polio eradication, agreed to continue his organization’s collaboration with the government to “prevent the disease from re-establishing itself in Pakistan’s major cities.”
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also pledged to invest $1.2 billion earlier this month to wipe out the disease as health experts from around the world gathered for a summit to discuss the issue in Berlin.
Meanwhile, artists hope competitions like the one held in Quetta last weekend would contribute to creating awareness about polio and sensitivity towards those living with the affects of the virus.
“We have shown in this project that if I am a physically fit person with a disabled friend, then I should not let him feel that he is a disabled person and can not play with us,” sculptor Mir Shair Ali, said, pointing at his work.
“In the project, we have tied up one our leg and showed ourselves to be disabled in order to convey that he too can play just like us.”
