Polio surveillance network helped curb COVID-19 in Pakistan, according to Salman Ahmad
Salman Ahmad's work in rural Pakistan was the subject of discussion in a BBC Radio show
Pakistan is hailed as one of the few countries around the world who effectively handled the coronavirus lockdown, baffling many who had predicted disastrous consequences of the infection in the country. However, singer and activist Salman Ahmed thinks the country's polio surveillance network helped curb COVID-19 at the right time.
These findings were discussed in BBC Radio show 'Dotun Adebayo' hosted by Susanne Courtney on September 21, in which reporter Rani Singh narrated Salman Ahmad's experiences in the context of Pakistan's surprising success in handling coronavirus amidst the global pandemic.
Salman, who is the UN Goodwill Ambassador for coronavirus for South Asia, said that the polio networks spread out across the country may have helped in curbing the COVID-19 in the country.
He has done his fair share of research as well, as the singer was out on the roads for three months in the rural areas of Pakistan, where 63% of the country's large population resides in slum areas.
According to Salman, the polio surveillance network — consisting of a million Pakistanis spread across the country — informed authorities about the on-ground situation of the infection which led the government to impose local lockdowns, not national ones.
However, experts and Salman both are equally mystified because the COVID-19 hasn't had a disastrous effect on the local population of the country living in these congested areas. They think it could either be the diet, the humidity in the country or the strain of the virus in Pakistan that averted the disaster.
Another mystifying aspect of the crisis was that when 11% of the country tested positive for COVID-19 in June, when the infection was considered being at its peak in Pakistan, a huge number of people were asymptomatic. They suspect these 11% of the population may have created an immunity that must have thwarted the virus from spreading across the country to even higher levels.
However, Pakistan is not out of the woods yet, believes Salman. The main test, according to him, will be when the country reopens schools and as many as 50 million children go back to schools to resume their classes.