Doubters’ question: Why doesn’t the US give free cures for other illnesses?
Violence, fear and suspicion imperil country’s war on polio.
ISLAMABAD:
Health worker Bushra Bibi spent eight years trekking to remote villages, carefully dripping polio vaccine into toddlers’ pursed mouths to protect them from the crippling disease.
Now the 35-year-old mother is too scared to go to work after masked men on motorbikes gunned down nine of her fellow health workers in a string of attacks this week.
“I have seen so much pain in the eyes of mothers whose children have been infected. So I have never seen this as just a job. It is my passion,” she said. “But I also have a family to look after ... Things have never been this bad.”
After the deaths, the United Nations put its workers on lockdown. Immunisations by the government continued in parts of the country. But the violence has raised fresh questions over the region’s stability.
Pakistan’s Taliban insurgency, convinced that the anti-polio drive is just another Western plot against Muslims, has long threatened action against anyone taking part in it.
“Ever since they began to give these polio drops, children are reaching maturity a lot earlier, especially girls. Now 12 to 13-year-old girls are becoming women. This causes indecency in society,” said 45-year-old Mir Alam Khan, a carpet seller in Dera Ismail Khan.
The father of four didn’t allow any of his children to receive vaccinations.
“Why doesn’t the US give free cures for other illnesses? Why only polio? There has to be an agenda,” he said.
While health workers risk attacks by militants, growing suspicions from ordinary people are lowering their morale. Fatima, a health worker in Peshawar said that reaction to news of the CIA polio campaign was so severe that many of her colleagues quit.
“People’s attitudes have changed. You will not believe how even the most educated and well-to-do people will turn us away, calling us US spies and un-Islamic,” said the 25-year-old who did not give her last name for fear of reprisals.
“Boys call us names, they say we are ‘indecent women’.”
Vaccinations cut Pakistan’s polio cases from 20,000 in 1994 to 56 in 2012 and the disease seemed isolated in a pocket in the north. But polio is spread person-to-person, so any outbreak risks re-infecting communities cleared of the disease.
Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation, said the group had been coming closer to eradicating the disease.
“For the first time, the virus had been geographically cornered,” he said. “We don’t want to lose the gains that had been made ... Any suspension of activities gives the virus a new foothold and the potential to come roaring back and paralyze more children.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2012.
Health worker Bushra Bibi spent eight years trekking to remote villages, carefully dripping polio vaccine into toddlers’ pursed mouths to protect them from the crippling disease.
Now the 35-year-old mother is too scared to go to work after masked men on motorbikes gunned down nine of her fellow health workers in a string of attacks this week.
“I have seen so much pain in the eyes of mothers whose children have been infected. So I have never seen this as just a job. It is my passion,” she said. “But I also have a family to look after ... Things have never been this bad.”
After the deaths, the United Nations put its workers on lockdown. Immunisations by the government continued in parts of the country. But the violence has raised fresh questions over the region’s stability.
Pakistan’s Taliban insurgency, convinced that the anti-polio drive is just another Western plot against Muslims, has long threatened action against anyone taking part in it.
“Ever since they began to give these polio drops, children are reaching maturity a lot earlier, especially girls. Now 12 to 13-year-old girls are becoming women. This causes indecency in society,” said 45-year-old Mir Alam Khan, a carpet seller in Dera Ismail Khan.
The father of four didn’t allow any of his children to receive vaccinations.
“Why doesn’t the US give free cures for other illnesses? Why only polio? There has to be an agenda,” he said.
While health workers risk attacks by militants, growing suspicions from ordinary people are lowering their morale. Fatima, a health worker in Peshawar said that reaction to news of the CIA polio campaign was so severe that many of her colleagues quit.
“People’s attitudes have changed. You will not believe how even the most educated and well-to-do people will turn us away, calling us US spies and un-Islamic,” said the 25-year-old who did not give her last name for fear of reprisals.
“Boys call us names, they say we are ‘indecent women’.”
Vaccinations cut Pakistan’s polio cases from 20,000 in 1994 to 56 in 2012 and the disease seemed isolated in a pocket in the north. But polio is spread person-to-person, so any outbreak risks re-infecting communities cleared of the disease.
Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation, said the group had been coming closer to eradicating the disease.
“For the first time, the virus had been geographically cornered,” he said. “We don’t want to lose the gains that had been made ... Any suspension of activities gives the virus a new foothold and the potential to come roaring back and paralyze more children.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2012.