“Since the project has been closed down, the number of people refusing the vaccine has increased in the province,” says cleric.PHOTO: FILE
Clerics have asked the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) to re-launch ‘The involvement of Ulema against elimination of polio’ project in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) as the instances of parents refusing vaccines are increasing.
In a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Monday, General Secretary of the project Maulana Jahanzeb Khan said the National Research and Development Foundation (NRDF) had hired around 700 ulema from all over K-P to convince people to vaccinate their children against polio.
The ‘involvement of Ulema against elimination of polio’ programme was initiated in 2010 by the NRDF and terminated in December 2012. However, salaries for the months of June to November 2012 have not yet been paid to the clerics who worked in the project and no reason for the delay has been given so far by the NRDF.
“Despite huge amounts of spending on polio eradication programmes, the success rate is very low. The government should investigate these organisations as they seem to be wasting public finances,” Jahanzeb said. The cleric alleged the NRDF and other anti-polio organisations do not want the virus to be eliminated.
Maulana Abdul Malik in his address said the hired clerics had been successful in persuading parents that polio drops were not against Islam and not harmful to children. “Since the project has been closed down, the number of people refusing the vaccine has increased in the province,” he revealed.
Talking about the issue of non-payment of salaries, Malick said, “We did not work for salaries alone. It was our national duty and we are still willing to perform it but the attitude of the Unicef and NRDF officials towards us is very appalling.”
Published in The Express Tribune, April 9th, 2013.
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