Friday, March 29, 2024
 
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Terror hub Pakistan has polio woes as well



By Manzoor Ahmed



Pakistan is not just the hub for militancy and export of terrorism, but also home to the largest population of children who are not vaccinated against polio because of the militants’ opposition.

At least 70 polio workers and security personnel who are part of the campaign for vaccinating the children have been killed since 2012 when it became known that the American CIA had used a doctor who was part of the campaign to gather the DNA samples of Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his family that had been sheltered at Abbottabad.

The militants, as also the Pakistani ulema, the Muslim clergy, are angry at this. The children and their families are the hapless victims of their anger.

Last year, Pakistan had its worst year in more than a decade in terms of polio infections, with at least 306 cases reported, 85.2 percent of the 359 cases worldwide, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

The campaign faces many challenges, but perhaps the most pressing is the matter of continuing threats against polio vaccination teams issued by armed religious groups such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its allies.

Now, after three years during which the campaign came to a violent halt and the polio workers and the supervisory staff have been terrorised, the clergy and their biggest political backer, Imran Khan of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) have sought to control the damage due to criticism that they have been inviting at home and among the world community.

Hard-line cleric Maulana Samiul Haq issued a fatwa urging parents to have their children vaccinated against polio. He later appeared in a photo-op with Imran Khan who administered anti-polio drops to his grandson. However, things have not gone beyond symbolic rituals.

Indeed, religious sentiment has been especially exploited on this issue by extremists to derail the anti-polio effort, render the work of vaccinators exceedingly dangerous and even justify the murders of polio workers and members of their security detail.

The threat from the militants is real. The Guardian of London carried a report recently wherein Naseer and Bibi, their names changed to ensure their safety, found their house attacked with bullets and grenades in the middle of the night. The couple was forced to quit the campaign and pay a heavy fine as ‘compensation’for the bullets an grenades used against them. “They don’t come free,” the coupple was told.

While this charade goes on, parents of the children are getting into trouble. While their children suffer and run the risk of polio, they are caught between the militants who are opposed to vaccination and the government which is keen to push the campaign under pressures from the UN agencies and international donors. The parental refusals have emerged as a worrying factor in the drive against polio in Pakistan.


The worst affected are families in Khyber Pashtunkhwa, the hotbed of militancy and the tribal areas where the government has been conducting a military campaign, displacing in the process, a million families.

Last year, Tank and South Waziristan accounted for 29 cases of polio - 9.5 percent of the national total - while this year the area has already registered its first case, according to local health authorities.


The problem is serious in Balochistan where parents of over 21,000 children refused to allow their offspring to be inoculated against the crippling disease. A fifth of them declined on religious grounds.


Threatened by the militants and influenced by the clergy, the parents allege that vaccine is part of a plot to sterilise or infect children, a belief that has been disseminated through many mosques and clerics in Pakistan.

The authorities have even arrested parents/guardians for refusing to get their children inoculated against polio, adding to the families’ woes.

The religious leaders were asked to play a proactive role, particularly in the high-risk Quetta block, which includes Quetta, Pishin and Killa Abdullah districts. These areas were the most affected by polio last year in the province which recorded around 25 polio cases. The religious leaders present at the meeting reaffirmed their continued support for the polio eradication campaign. But their response has not been translated into tangible action. They have not gone beyond mouthing platitudes and giving reassurances.


It has considerable sway over societal attitudes to education and healthcare, particularly in the country’s more conservative areas.

A recent editorial in Dawn newspaper says: “Aside from dramatic visuals, such one-stop, flash-in-the-pan efforts achieve little of substance. Pakistan’s clergy could look to the stunning success in polio eradication by India where ulema committees — including representatives of various Muslim sects as well as a doctor — were formed to address parental reservations regarding vaccination, reportedly found most often among Muslim communities.The strategy is often cited as having played a definitive role in India’s campaign.


Polio (poliomyelitis) is a highly infectious debilitating virus that targets the nervous system of children, causing partial or complete paralysis of their limbs. Since 1988, reported polio cases worldwide have declined by more than 99 percent, but the virus remains endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.
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During the past two years, Taliban militants have killed 63 health workers and members of the security forces assigned to protect them. Last month, there was a fresh round of attacks. In Pakistan's Khyber tribal region,gunmen wounded a polio vaccinator and killed a driver. And in the southwest province of Balochistan, four members of a vaccination team—including a health worker, a driver, and two security personnel—were abducted by the Taliban and later found shot to death.



(The writer is a Kashmir based freelance journalist)


(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Scoop News and Scoop News does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)


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