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The Vaccination Drive to Rescue Pakistani Children From Polio

"[The most recent drive for polio vaccination has been halted because an] uncertain and threatening situation for front-line workers has emerged and we need to save the program from further damage."
Pakistan health officials

Pakistani police officers escort members of a polio vaccination team during a door-to-door campaign on the outskirts of Islamabad. Photograph: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images

Poliomyelitis has been eradicated almost everywhere in the world. In Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan the wild virus remains a predator. Where once globally 350,000 cases of polio were reported annually, in the last year 33 cases were reported. Global eradication of the polio virus was initiated in 1988 and it has made a vast difference in the lives of vulnerable children.

Pakistan has a particularly acute problem with polio eradication. The nation has launched a robust program to vaccinate all its children. But suspicion among tribal communities particularly in the mountainous north is problematical and dangerous, both to the medical community which hopes to fulfill their task of immunization and the children left unvaccinated as a result of violent actions taken by tribal people convinced there is a Western plot to harm children in the polio vaccines.

Pakistan is also a haven for Islamist jihadis. It is where the Taliban derived their support, where Pakistan's Inter Services Agency and the country's military shaped the Taliban, armed and motivated them and taught them military strategies. It is where al-Qaeda found refuge, and it is where, in Abbottabad which also housed a military officer barracks, was also the site of Osama bin Laden's household compound.

A Pakistani physician who lived next door to the compound assisted the CIA in identifying the occupants of the bin Laden home, verifying that Osama bin Laden lived there with his wives and children. After the Navy SEALs invaded the compound, killed bin Laden and escaped with his corpse, his documents, hard drives and computers, the physician was arrested, charged with treason, and imprisoned.

As a device to gain entrance to the compound, the physician had informed the occupants that he was involved in vaccinating children against polio. He supplied the CIA with DNA he extracted from the compound residents. Supporters of al-Qaeda and local Islamists suspected that all vaccination efforts for polio eradication were in reality a way to transmit diseases to their children, a plot that emanated from the CIA. That situation and other resistance has led to lethal violence.

A damaged health centre on the outskirts of Peshawar, set alight by a mob following rumours of children suffering bad reactions to polio vaccinations. Photograph: Abdul Majeed/AFP/Getty

The latest government-sponsored polio vaccination campaign was suspended when a health worker and two police officers dispatched for her protection were shot dead, the result of the social media health scare. Claims that the polio vaccine was in reality harmful to children began a parental panic with tens of thousands of children brought to hospital in north-eastern Pakistan in the wake of reports the vaccine caused vomiting and fainting.

Fake news in a report that activated a mob to burn down a health centre. A recent increase in polio cases spurred the government to action when samples of sewage were investigated and the result was that the polio virus was present. An abundance of conspiracy theories thrive in the area, that polio vaccine is in reality a plot to sterilize Muslim children. Leading to a popular resistance to the program that frequently turns violent.

In the latest response to such rumours 700,000 families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwe province refused vaccinations for their children, according to local media reports. Campaigns held every six weeks in an effort to ensure that no children are missed, have been temporarily suspended. Pakistan has thus far managed to vaccinate over 37 million children. Its target is 39 million. In Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta, the search for unvaccinated children is suspended, amid security fears.

Right, Khalida Nasareen, 61, area supervisor in Orangi Town, in the north of Karachi. Photograph: Khaula Jamil/Courtesy of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Labels: Child Welfare, Conspiracy Theories, Pakistan, Polio, Vaccination, Violence

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, May 02, 2019