National Immunisation Day
Drive Against Polio

By Balaram Chaulagain

AS a part of sixth year’s 2nd round of anti-polio campaign, polio drop are being administered to over 4 million kids below the age of 5 on 19th Jan, 2002. As per a recent information received from Department of Health Services the stage is set for nationwide vaccination for which about 100,000 persons including health workers and volunteers will be mobilised. As per the target of W.H.O. to wipe out polio world-wide, Nepal has also been observing National Immunisation Day (NID) for the last 5 years. Nepal launched the 6th year’s 1st round anti-polio drive across country on 1st Dec last year. Previous year’s nation-wide campaign against polio was successfully completed, consequently this year no case of polio has been noticed so far. The five rounds of NIDs conducted in the last five consecutive years were completely successful.

Polio is a highly contagious acute viral infection which affects children under five years of age with no specific treatment but only prevention through vaccination. Primarily, polio virus affects the alimentary canal, and may be transmitted up to central nervous system through the spinal cord resulting in paralysis or causing life long deformities of the body or probably death, too. To eliminate polio all children under the age of five should collectively receive 2 to 3 drops of oral polio, vaccine (OPV), 4 to 6 weeks apart in order to be immunised from the crippling disease of the children. The OPV can be fed to all children irrespective of their previous routine immunisation against it. Keeping in view the health hazard caused by the polio, the government under its expanded programme on immunisation (EPI) has supplied polio-vaccine along with other globally recommended vaccines freely through all health institutions scattered all over the country. Routine immunisation against polio could protect 60 to 80 per cent of children susceptible to the disease. That is why, in order to totally eradicate polio from society, all children under five who may harbour the viruses, must collectively receive OPV. Due to different unforeseen causes many children under age of five are yet to be immunised against polio. The OPV used in our country induces systematic immunity against the diseases. OPV is a component of live, attenuated, harmless and toxinless viruses prepared by highly advanced modern technology. When children are fed such vaccine viruses, they get immunity themselves. Besides, the vaccine viruses are excreted through their stool and may be disseminated in nature to kill or replace other wild disease causing polio viruses. Therefore, the importance of NID is to cultivate vaccine viruses to overcome the disease causing wild polio viruses present in nature. Poor sanitation of over-crowded cities and rural slums are believed to be fertile ground for the spread of virus. To create an epidemiological block of the polio case, India is synchronising this year’s anti-polio drive simultaneously with Nepal. Nepal tried her best to accomplished the campaign successfully. It is an irony to note that the South Asian Region is unlikely to eradicate polio by stipulated time frame. It is so because polio does not obey the political boundaries of any country. As per some Indian news source, India could not successfully complete the last years anti-polio drive as anticipated, consequently polio cases are still reported from a few district in the country and a large number of children are left to be immunised. In such a scene, how does the WHO hope to erase the polio from the globe by 2005 AD? According to some official source nearly 60 per cent of the world’s polio cases are found in Indian territory alone and it has been estimated that India still has more polio cases than any other country. Hence, so long as we fail to wipe out disease causing wild polio viruses from the entire surface of the earth we can’t eradicate polio. As such, priority should be accorded in the areas where paralytic polio occurs abundantly. As per WHO’s policy line a country can only be declared as a polio free country after its three consecutive year’s zero report on polio case. Polio patients were found in 125 countries in 1988. But now it is confined to only nine countries including Nepal, India and Myanmar. As before this year too Nepal is synchronising the 6th year’s NID drive with her neighbouring counterparts. Since a highly communicable and a dreaded small-pox has almost been eradicated from our land, polio will also be eradicated soon if all work honestly towards this global mission. In Nepal, the result of the previous years campaign against polio were encouraging. Therefore the rays of hope are emerging in the field of polio eradication.

Lastly, it goes without saying that so long as poverty and ignorance which are believed to be a major attributing factors for the prevalence of the disease like polio and such others will continue to proliferate in the society simply an official efforts does nothing. For this, a strong political commitment with full public participation is necessary. The vigour and zeal we are putting to eradicate polio, should also be applied to combat other diseases like Tuberculosis, Measles, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, and so on. With a view to find out fresh cases of polio related paralysis cases, surveillance is being conducted throughout the country. If survey shows positive cases of polio, the campaign may last long. So long as all intelligentsia, business communities, senior citizens, journalists, government service holders as well as common people who are concerned with the well being of their children do not fully take part in this mission we can’t get success to eradicate polio. If a single child is left out to be covered during this campaign polio may strike again, hence, all efforts from all quarters of life should be applied in this regard. Let us join lands to accomplish the gignatic task of feeding the maximum number of children in a single day. This year’s intensified drive against polio would be a milestone in the field of public health. The immunisation booths are at each and every wards of all VDCs which will be followed by nexth day’s house to house visit to ensure that no child is left out during NID coverage.

Victims & Beneficiaries Of Child Labour

THE most effective attack on the evils of child labour may have come from Charles Dicken’s novel ‘Oliver Twist’. The book was widely read throughout the world and drew attention to the suffering of the children. Gradually, countries passed laws to correct the abuses of child labour with consideration to the millions of children working illegally in the industrialised and developing countries under terrible, vile conditions.

The first child labour laws came in 1802. The British Parliament passed the first law regulating child labour. The law prohibited the employment of pauper children (children dependent on charity) under 9 years of age. Pauper children under 14 could not work at night, and their workday was limited to 12 hours. In 1819, the law was extended to include all children. No real provision of enforcing these laws was made until 1833, when the Factory Act was passed and implemented, which also made provisions for factory inspection.

In 1890, an International Labour Conference was held in Berlin, Germany, to examine the problem of child workers. The International Association for Labour Legislation was established in Switzerland in 1900, with the aim of setting up minimum standards for the protection of child workers. This modern protective legislation against child labour is today enhanced and accepted by many nations with utmost gravity. The legislation clearly defines and employment of the children under the minimum age is generally prohibited. Also employment during school hours for more than a few hours a day on school days for children of school age. There is a general provision against children carrying or lifting anything too heavy for them. There are more detailed provisions to protect children and young people in such industries as mining, quarrying, shipping, and factories.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) of the United Nations exists to improve working conditions throughout the world. It has adapted a series of conventions and recommendations over the past years, which deal specifically with the employment of children and young people. For instance, the Minimum Age Convention provides guidelines on when, where and under what condition children may work. By 1988, 36 countries had ratified the convention. In many of these countries, the minimum age for light work is 12 years and for hazardous work is usually between 16 and 18 years.

But the ILO has shown that there is still much to be done to protect children from being exploited by the employers. Until general living standards and conditions are improved in many places, there will still be children who have to work to supplement their own or their family’s low income.

In many developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, millions of under privileged boys and girls still hold full-time jobs illegally. In some countries, children under 15 form a large part of the total work force, and there is little or no control over their working condition. They are most commonly employed in mines, quarries, factories, and on farms. Some children work with their parents, doing simple but repetitive tasks, contributing to the family’s income. Other children work by themselves because their guardians are either dead, disabled, or are not able to get work.

Ironically, the number of children labour force is maximum in an industry where the country has an economic advantage in the commodity they produce. For example although the law in Egypt prohibits the employment of children under the age of 12, its leather tanning industry has had a high number of child labourers since the 1800’s. In Columbia, children work in agriculture, manufacturing, quarrying, and brick making. The gold industry in Peru employs many seasonal child migrant workers. Children are employed in the carpet manufacturing industries and garment factories in Nepal and in many other Indian-Subcontinent. In the Philippines, children are employed in the wood and clothing industry.

Although the governments of most developing countries have laws prohibiting the employment of children, they lack the financial assistance to enforce these laws. Also, the poverty in most of the Third World Developing Countries means that many parent need the additional help of their children for the family to survive.

But the main quandary is faced when it comes to child laws in the least developed countries. These developing countries produce the highest number of child labourers and to enforce protective legislation towards child labour would mean to force millions of under privileged boys and girls living under poverty line to go hungry. The United Nations Convention on the rights of the children states that all actions affecting children should place priority in the best interest of the children involved. For such countries the anti-child labour drive would seem to do more harm than good to the working children.

But what will happen of the children living in utmost poverty, dwelling in excruciatingly tough life without work? A simple answer would be that they would become more exposed and extremely vulnerable to the world of turmoil, violence, theft, humiliation and repression, abject neglect, drug addiction and sexual exploitation.

Many means and mediums create Child Labourers Though poverty may come on the top of the list, individuals greed and lust for money takes this matter a bit further. The industrial and factory owners and executives are too well aware of the fact that children could be paid lower wages than adults, and were not so likely as adults to cause labour troubles. Child workers were often deprived of the chance to attend school. Uneducated, the only work they were capable of doing was unskilled labour. Thus, they had little or not chance to better themselves.

Children’s laws protects them from cruelty, sexual offences, neglect, or exploitation and assure them of some form of standard education. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children was adopted and formulated on November 20, 1989. The various articles of the convention ranges from the right of children to express their views, right of freedom of thoughts, the right of protection from abuse, and the right to a good standard of living. But when is it that these rights are implemented and accepted by every individual?