16,000 children missed out in polio drive due to parents' refusal

[Blackwater]

ISLAMABAD: Though a nationwide campaign to vaccinate 34.16 million children started on Monday, 16,757 children could not be vaccinated in Peshawar city on the first day because of refusal by their parents.

However, National Manager Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) Dr Rana Safdar said data about the parents had been collected and these children would be vaccinated by involving influential personalities of the city.

Secretary Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) Ayub Ahmed Sheikh inaugurated the control centre at the EPI building here.

The centre is the initial form of the emergency operation cell (EOC) recommended by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) which works on behalf of the international donor agencies.

Security concerns shorten campaign to one day
The EOC will be operating at the federal and provincial level to collect real-time data from the field and ensure a quick response.

Mr Sheikh said 38.26 million doses of vaccine had been supplied to the provinces for the campaign.

"The federal government is fully committed to ensuring support to the provinces to reach out to each and every child during the campaign," he said.

However, by evening, data gathered by the control centre became shocking.

An official of the ministry, requesting not to be identified, said in Peshawar due to security reasons the polio campaign was reduced to just one day.

He said past experiences had shown that polio teams were usually attacked on the second or third day of the campaigns.

"During the one-day campaign in Peshawar, 84 per cent children (635,378 out of 754,383) were vaccinated while 28,934 children were not available at their addresses.

But the shocking thing was that 16,757 children could not be covered because their parents refused to vaccinate them," he said.

Dr Rana Safdar, while talking to Dawn, said the refusal cases were not unusual.

"Out of the 97 union councils (UCs) in Peshawar, 45 have been declared high security risk areas. So only one-day campaign was launched there. However, there will be two catch-up days during which we will try to vaccinate the children which could not be covered," he said.

“The data on children is available; now it will be analysed to ascertain their tribe, language and school of thought. After that, influential personalities of the area will be involved to vaccinate the children. The number of refusal cases will be reduced in the catch-up phase," he claimed.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2014

 

[Blackwater]

pakistan jahilo ka tola.

:taunt1::taunt1:

 

[Ashutosh Lokhande]

[\B]16,757 children could not be vaccinated in Peshawar city on the first day because of refusal by their parents.[/B]

Why the fu*k there parents refused?
Is it bcoz the polio vaccination was invented by a kafur?

 

[Ashutosh Lokhande]

And why wer the polio team attacked?

 

[Blackwater]

And why wer the polio team attacked?

Becoz it's against paki version of Islam

 

[p2prada]

They believe it is a RAW/CIA/Mossad conspiracy. They think the vaccinations will send them to hell or something.

Pakistan: Where conspiracy theories can cost a child's life | GlobalPost

"In Pakistan, conspiracy theories are almost an Olympic sport," explained C. Christine Fair, a Pakistan scholar and assistant professor at Georgetown University.

Earlier this month, Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, a religious scholar and leader of a faction of the conservative political party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, came out in support of the polio vaccine, issuing a fatwa against polio.

 

[Ashutosh Lokhande]

They believe it is a RAW/CIA/Mossad conspiracy. They think the vaccinations will send them to hell or something.

Pakistan: Where conspiracy theories can cost a child's life | GlobalPost

WTF

 

[Dhairya Yadav]

Pakistan never disappoints!

 

[Blackwater]

yeah langre lulle ,polio-grast paki gazwa-a-hind karenge

 

[Blackwater]

Three injured in attack on polio team in Gujranwala

Three injured in attack on polio team in Gujranwala – The Express Tribune

 

[proud_indian]

yeah langre lulle ,polio-grast paki gazwa-a-hind karenge

don't be ridiculous! They are kids and they don't deserve it irrespective to their nationality.

 

[Neo]

don't be ridiculous! They are kids and they don't deserve it irrespective to their nationality.

He's a hatemonger with a very sick mind. Ignore him and his ar*elickers.

These kids are humans first, then anything else and need our sympathy and protection.

 

[Blackwater]

He's a hatemonger with a very sick mind. Ignore him and his ar*elickers.

These kids are humans first, then anything else and need our sympathy and protection.

look whos talking of sick mind, what a hypocrite paki

why cant you see sick mind in ur own people who refuse polio drops

well,



its ur country

ur kids

ur sick mentality

ur gazi army sucking all finances

ur security issues

we are just doing duty of a good neighbour

 

[thethinker]

These kids are humans first, then anything else and need our sympathy and protection.

You should probably tell that to ISI and PA who sheltered Osama all this time and due to which the fake polio vaccination campaign was started by CIA for his whereabouts.

Playing the sympathy card for your country's unfortunate while ducking every hard question that traces back such sorry state of affairs to your military apparatus won't earn you any credibility.

 

[Neo]

You should probably tell that to ISI and PA who sheltered Osama all this time and due to which the fake polio vaccination campaign was started by CIA for his whereabouts.

Playing the sympathy card for your country's unfortunate while ducking every hard question that traces back such sorry state of affairs to your military apparatus won't earn you any credibility.

When it comes to politics vs humanity, I choose for humanity. Don't politicise the issue.

 

[thethinker]

When it comes to politics vs humanity, I choose for humanity. Don't politicise the issue.

I am sure you do. That is why your undying support for Gaza while staying quiet on all the Balcohistan atrocities.

Humanity indeed.

 

[Neo]

I am sure you do. That is why your undying support for Gaza while staying quiet on all the Balcohistan atrocities.

Humanity indeed.

I sympathise with all humans suffering, sans borders, and do not mock at their misery like some lowlife clowns proudly do.
Don't pull my comment out of its context and stick to the topic.

 

[thethinker]

I sympathise with humans suffering, sans borders, and do not mock at their misery like some lowlife clowns proudly do.
Don't pull my comment out of its context and stay to.the topic.

Must be a wonderful feeling to first cause human suffering and then sympathise. Ignore the root cause but make sure to give lip sympathy knowing fully well why and who causes it.

As far as mockery of misery goes, it is directed towards the sorry state of your nation's affairs and the medieval religious mindset that permeates there. Do let us know what humanitarian progress is made by radical mullahs there.

And finally, as a concerned Pak citizen you should in fact try to remove the root causes of such misery rather than always try to gain sympathy.

 

[Blackwater]

I sympathise with all humans suffering, sans borders, and do not mock at their misery like some lowlife clowns proudly do.
Don't pull my comment out of its context and stick to the topic.

 

[Blackwater]

Polio refusals in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: Parents having more faith in archaic notions than in modern healthcare refused polio vaccines to 129 children on the first day of the reinvigorated anti-polio campaign in the city on Monday.

Social supervisors of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), however, will visit them and try to convince them of the need and advantage of the vaccination in their own language Pashto.

Know more: 16,000 children missed out in polio drive due to parents' refusal

An official statement of the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) said a meeting, held on Tuesday and chaired by Secretary NHS Ayub Sheikh, was informed that 36,483 children among the 38,803 targeted for the first day of the campaign were vaccinated. Vaccinators did not find the remainder when they visited their homes. They returned in the evening and vaccinated 828 of them.

They hope to cover the other left-out on the last day of the four-day campaign.

Altogether, 131,797 children will be vaccinated in the urban sectors, 33 rural villages and 14 urban slums. Islamabad territory has been divided into 16 zones and 88 sectors for the purpose. In addition to 50 transit points and 103 fixed centres, more than 400 mobile teams will scour the city to administer polio drops to children below 5 years.

Some localities of Islamabad have been marked as high risk areas. They include Budhara, Jhangi Syeda, I-11 Kachi Abadi, Mehra Abadi, Sarae Kharbooza, Ternol and some urban slums in the centre of the city.

Director Health CDA Dr. Hasan Orooj, who briefed the meeting about the campaign, later told Dawn that people who refused the vaccination to their children belonged to "all segment of life".

"We have divided them in two categories – the Permanent Refusals and the Temporary Refusals. People in the first category refuse every time the vaccinators approach the family and those second category just hesitate because they have been told the vaccination is Haram or injurious to health," he said.

"On Monday, a Pashtoon resident of Tarnol refused the vaccination to his child. I sent a Pashto-speaking supervisor to convince him and the man said he would allow the vaccination if he could convince the head of the family.

"That gave me the idea how to breakdown the barrier. I will ask the UNICEF to try the same," he said.

Children missed because of unavailability of the vaccine which will reach in the next two days, he said.

"In every campaign we cover 99 per cent children of the city. That is why sewage sample of Islamabad is negative for last six years and not a single case has been reported in the capital during last 13 years," he said.

While replying to a question Dr Orooj said that in ongoing campaign violent resistance is not observed. Moreover schools have also cooperated.

Dr. Hasan Orooj raised the issue of volunteer-based polio campaign at the meeting as Lady Health Visitor programme does not exist in urban Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, October 1st , 2014

Polio refusals in Islamabad - Pakistan - DAWN.COM