To write that the vaccine affects ‘children and adults alike’ was completely uninformed.
KARACHI: I chanced upon Najma Sadeque’s piece in the January 24th paper and the arguments presented by her, against the OPV defy all logic. To imply that the transfer of the vaccine is now being caused because of the vaccine itself is not just naïve but uncompromisingly ignorant for someone who has been a journalist and is now working for an NGO. If the public has a good memory, and I count myself among the same crowd, then the issue has already been picked up and addressed about a year back. A team of paediatricians, representing the Paediatric Association of Pakistan, comprising experts, such as Dr AG Billo and Dr Iqbal Memon, who called a press conference and gave details about the risk and its prevalence. They clearly pointed out that the vaccine is the same one used all over the world and that even an expired vaccine, (they volunteered to drink and prove it), will not harm children. No impotency, no immediate health risks and no side effects even if the child has no need of the vaccine. To write that the vaccine affects ‘children and adults alike’ was completely uninformed as we all know that the poliovirus attacks only children, and that’s why the targeted group comprises children up to five years of age. She further writes that we need better toilets. While we may all agree that hygiene plays the most important role in most human illnesses, the connection that she draws here seems totally absurd. For a virus that needs to be eradicated from its human host to be wiped out completely from earth, she is going to use toilets? So she implies that the whole world is trying to fool Pakistan and so are the country’s own experts, government and stakeholders as none of their assurances, experienced logic and factual and medical explanations count in front of her. Are we all that naïve?
Aziz Memon
Chair, Pakistan National PolioPlus Committee
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2013.
