Propaganda against polio vaccine results in new poliovirus cases

Parents confessed to not getting their children vaccinated which resulted into disability.

ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - The Prime Minister s Focal Person on Polio Babar Bin Atta on Friday advised parents that they should not adhere to the propaganda against the polio vaccine and must get their children vaccinated against the disease [poliovirus].

According to the details, two new polio cases have emerged in Quetta and Bannu. It was reported that parents adhered to propaganda and kept their children from getting vaccinated. Parents after the disability of their children confessed that they did not vaccinate the children and continued to forge a mark on their child’s finger to prevent them from polio drops.

PM Focal Person on Polio expressed grievance over the details of polio cases in Quetta. “Majority of 47 polio cases this year happened owing to not get the children vaccinated. The same polio vaccine eradicated the virus from all over the world, including Muslim countries”, he added. “For God’s sake, parents should not listen to propaganda,” he maintained.

Pakistan’s polio eradication campaign has hit serious problems with an alarming spike in reported cases that has raised doubts over the quality of vaccination reporting and prompted officials to review their approach to stopping the crippling disease. 

Local officials say parents suspicious of mass immunization campaigns have been getting hold of special markers, used by health workers to put a coloured spot on the little fingers of children who have been vaccinated.

“They themselves would mark the fingers of their children, in case of any official visit to countercheck the vaccinated children,” one official associated with an international organisation told Reuters in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Officials estimate that so-called fake finger marking, sometimes in collusion with health workers, is hiding the true scale of refusal rates - and thus gaps in vaccination.