According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than half of Pakistan's 32 million children missed polio vaccination during the nationwide campaign from October 15 to 17.

About 1.7 children were not given the vaccination because of religious edicts coupled with threats by the Taliban. Another 260,000 missed it because of incidents of violence in FATA and other parts of the country.

On October 15, gunmen shot and killed a vaccinator in the outskirts of Quetta. The Balochistan Paramedical Staff Association went on strike after the attack. It suspended the ongoing campaign and vowed to boycott the ones planned for future. In a press conference, the association's president Abdul Samad Raisani demanded compensation for the victim and better security for his colleagues.

"As a nation, you should be ashamed to see us carrying vaccination-coolers on our shoulders riding on donkeys to protect your children," he told BBC Urdu. "But you leave us at the mercy of killers. We are trained to lift coolers, not Kalashnikovs."

About 250,000 health workers participated in the 2012 campaign.

Raisani said teachers and polio workers were paid less than janitors. "We are paid Rs200 to Rs250 a day," he said. "We walk all the day in harsh weather risking our lives. How can you eliminate polio if you leave us to die?"

The boy had received threats through SMS, he said, but was not given security. "We were not even allowed to enter Mastung, which is the chief minister's constituency."

In Sheerani, a three year old child was diagnosed with polio. His parents did not vaccinate him because a local cleric had said polio vaccination was un-Islamic. There was no action against the cleric. This is the fourth polio case in Balochistan this year. There were 54 reported cases in 2011.

In Lahore, a polio vaccination team was beaten up at the Niazi Bus Terminal while giving drops to the children traveling in buses. No one was arrested.

Many Afghan and Pashtun parents did not vaccinate their children after an edict by a Deobandi cleric in Rawalpindi's Fauji Colony.

"Why are such edicts not followed in Punjab?" Islamabad-based social scientist Usman Qazi asked. "Why do clerics from Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi not condemn these edicts?"

Tahir Ashrafi, the Lahore-based chairman of the Ulema and Mashaikh Council of Pakistan, says he denounced the anti-vaccination edicts. "My colleagues and I have inaugurated several polio vaccination campaigns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa."

Jamia Binoria, a key seminary in Karachi, has issued a fatwa that polio vaccination is not un-Islamic. "Our doctors have done research on the polio vaccine and found nothing harmful," Mufti Nadir Jan said. A copy of the edict was available on the internet, he added.

But Jamaat-e-Islami chief Syed Munawar Hassan was hesitant. "I neither condemn nor support anti-polio edicts," he said. "I denounce traitors like Shakil Afridi for masterminding fake polio campaigns and the anti-Islam policies of the US," he said, linking the vaccination drive to the US and its war on terror.

Analysts say the paranoia is linked to the US arrival in Afghanistan after 9/11. But Usman Qazi says he had first heard such an edict in 1994 by Sufi Mohammad, when he launched Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) in Swat and Malakand.

Reporter and researcher Zia Ur Rehman heard such edicts during the Afghan Jihad.

But they did not have a significant impact until Sufi Muhammad's son in law Mullah Fazlullah - the man behind the attack on Malala Yousafzai - began calling the shots in Swat in 2002.

Fazalullah preached on his illegal FM radio that polio vaccination caused infertility. The propaganda worked and polio cases rose from 90 in 2002 to 103 in 2003.

Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only three countries where polio has not been eradicated completely. According to WHO, Pakistan cannot be a polio-free country until at least 2014. But that may not be possible if the security situation doesn't change.

On July 17, an African doctor working with the WHO and his Pakistani driver were critically injured when their vehicle was fired at in Karachi. The doctor was administering polio vaccination in Sohrab Goth.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) closed down its operations in three of Pakistan's four provinces in May after its male nurse Khalil Rasjed Dale was abducted and subsequently beheaded in Quetta.

As the climate of fear and suspicion persists, the battle to eradicate polio will be long.

The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist and researcher. Email: yamankalyan@gmail.com

Comments (2 comments)

A very informative and interesting article to educate the people about the significance of “Polio Vaccination”. Mr. Shehzad has very well highlighted the this current issue of the remote area, the hardship faced by the volunteers. KEEP IT UP……

Posted: Saturday, October 27, 2012 by Gulzar Ahmad Numerologist from Islamabad

just barbaric bafoons holding the countries future into ransom.. toothless and spineless ministers safeguarding their own present day instead of building hope and life for tomorrow... pakistan paying today for yesterdays short sighted policies of playing music together with rightist destroyers of human existence. shame .

Posted: Saturday, October 27, 2012 by wg cdr (r) balachandran from chennai