'UN, WHO can ban Pakistanis from travelling abroad if polio not eradicated'

[Paan Singh]

MULTAN: United Nations (UN) and World Health Organisation can ban Pakistanis from travelling outside Pakistan if polio is not completely eradicated from the country, said district coordination officer (DCO) Multan.
While chairing the meeting organised for monitoring polio campaign in the city, DCO Multan Mudassir Riaz Malik said restrictions against Pakistan can get severe if the country fails to end polio, adding that the number of polio cases in Pakistan has crossed the number in Afghanistan.
Explaining the traces of polio found in recent solid waste samples, Malik said that all stakeholders need to work together for the eradication campaign.
“If we will not do anything for the eradication, Pakistan will remain the only country to have polio patients in the entire world,” he said.
Speaking about the negative propaganda against the quality of polio vaccine, Malik said that the same vaccine was used in India and Afghanistan and had managed to eradicate the disease.
Stressing on the need of coordinated effort against the disease, Malik said that Pakistan has similar infrastructure as the countries which successfully brought polio to an end.
Executive District Officer (EDO) Health Multan Mukhtar Hussain Shah, during the meeting, briefed the attendees about the three-day campaign, saying that 1751 teams will vaccinate around 0.65 million children in the city.

‘UN, WHO can ban Pakistanis from travelling abroad if polio not eradicated’ – The Express Tribune

 

[CaptainJackSparrow]

Can a healthy but vaccinated person also be carrying the polio virus?

 

[hawx]

who has authority to do that ?

 

[CaptainJackSparrow]

who has authority to do that ?

I think at the most they can issue advisories.

WHO can also suspend Pakistan from its membership.

They cannot, although, decide the visa policy of the member countries.

 

[Invincible INDIAN]

What is the reason for not using polio drops in Pakistan? What is the problem?

I have heard that Generally people in Pakistan believe that it will bring impotency. Is it true?

If it is yes, How would they tackle with that?

Just curious...

 

[karan.1970]

What is the reason for not using polio drops in Pakistan? What is the problem?

I have heard that Generally people in Pakistan believe that it will bring impotency. Is it true?

If it is yes, How would they tackle with that?

Just curious...

Muslim scholars fight to dispel polio vaccination myths in Pakistan | Sana Saleem | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Militancy in Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas (Fata) has triggered a different kind of ordeal; the resurgence of polio or infantile paralysis – a potentially fatal and paralysing disease that mostly affects children, pregnant women and the elderly. Being one of the four countries where polio is still endemic, it has become a cause of concern for neighbouring countries such as China where a recent case of wild polio virus (WPV1) was genetically linked to Pakistan.

In the Khyber Agency, more than 200,000 children have regularly missed immunisation since 2009, and as many as 84 nationwide cases of polio have been reported this year. Apart from inaccessibility due to security concerns, one of the reasons for lack of immunisation is reluctance from the parents, stemming from rumours that polio drops cause impotency and infertility.

These rumours first surfaced when Maulana Fazlullah, leader of a banned militant organisation and an influential religious cleric in the tribal areas, launched a campaign against polio vaccination through his daily sermons. Sermons through radio and mosque loudspeakers denounced polio vaccination as an American ploy to sterilise and reduce the population of Muslims.

Polio vaccines used in Pakistan are manufactured in WHO laboratories around the world, including the United States, which makes them a source of resentment for the militant groups. While the Tehreek-i-Taliban and other groups opposing polio drops claimed that the vaccinations were made out of pig fat and hence forbidden for Muslims, some of these sermons declared any child who got paralysed or died of polio a martyr, for refusing to fall for a western conspiracy.

News reports of CIA's fake vaccination campaign during the search for Bin Laden has further strengthened these misconceptions.

Now religious scholars have joined the campaign to dismantle the myths and battle the resurgence of polio. A campaign led by National Research and Development Foundation (NRDF) in partnership with Unicef has brought together more than 5,000 of them, working on provincial and district levels, to tackle the issue. The group comprises of scholars belonging to the Deobandi sect, a school of thought followed by the majority of population in the tribal belt.

In Fata, clerics helped resolve 8,120 vaccine refusal cases during a week-long campaign in March this year. Another 160 religious scholars from Swat have issued a Fatwa in favour of the vaccinations. A campaign, starting this month, will be led by Shia scholars as it expands to the Parachinar valley, where the majority of the population are Shia Muslims.

A team of health workers and religious scholars are working together on this project. Zahid Akhtar, a project manager at the NRDF, believes that the religious scholars have played a pivotal role in convincing people:

"They have used their power of communication by clearing misconceptions during the special sermons on Fridays. Some of the scholars accompanied teams during our door-to-door campaign convincing parents, at a time where most of them would not even allow health workers to enter their premises"

Akhtar recalls parents who believed that vaccinating their children would be interfering with God's will, others were sceptical "We have no food or clean water to drink, why is the government so concerned about polio?

"Some parents go as far as demanding a sack of flour or clean water in return for agreeing to get their children immunised. This is where the authorities need to step in and address issues of poverty and hunger. As far as religious misconceptions are concerned, we have seen them change: it's the clerics that informed them, often quoting verses in the Qur'an about the importance of healing a single human being equal to healing humankind"

Both the NRDF and Unicef are working under immense pressure to meet their goal for the eradication of polio by December 2012. Even though Akhtar is hopeful and considers the goals achievable, the uncertainty surrounding military operations in tribal areas, the rising resentment against American-based organisations and the recent dismantling of the national ministry of health will continue to be a major hindrance.

Religion may have started this problem. Religion is also helping to solve it. But in Pakistan, religion, war, poverty and politics are all entangled and the country's problems cannot be solved without addressing all these things.

 

[zip]

This is pressure tactic ... I think pakistan is not far away from total eradication of polio

 

[Invincible INDIAN]

Muslim scholars fight to dispel polio vaccination myths in Pakistan | Sana Saleem | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Akhtar recalls parents who believed that vaccinating their children would be interfering with God's will, others were sceptical "We have no food or clean water to drink, why is the government so concerned about polio?

"Some parents go as far as demanding a sack of flour or clean water in return for agreeing to get their children immunised. This is where the authorities need to step in and address issues of poverty and hunger. As far as religious misconceptions are concerned, we have seen them change: it's the clerics that informed them, often quoting verses in the Qur'an about the importance of healing a single human being equal to healing humankind"

It is good for their own people, why don't they believe this?

 

[russellpeters]

interesting to think about 2000 years ago in what is now Pakistan, people from monks to military generals used to immunize themselves against poison and disease..

 

[Hack-Hook]

Can a healthy but vaccinated person also be carrying the polio virus?

depends of the vaccine ,If you get the live vaccine (the one which is like a drop) then no you can't be a carrier
but if you get the vaccines that is made of deactivated polio virus (the one which is injected like other vaccines)
then yes you can be a carrier in future.
deactivated vaccine if I'm not wrong is the vaccine that is used in USA and England and Australia.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

I would hate to see Pakistanis with the infection venture out and infect fellow comrades or infect others in other countries. It wouldnt be fair, would it?

maybe the people we call ''leaders'' can get their thumbs out from far up in their arses so they could actually address the issue....incidentally, if a country like india (with a population of 1 billion, and much more urban congestion) can be taken off the polio list then it wont be a problem for Pakistan.

in just a few months the issue could be nipped in the bud, if only the government got its act together --and people (common man) were also more informed

 

[russellpeters]

organizations such as the rotoract clubs and local NGOs helped a lot in polio eradication. add to that a very comprehensive vaccination program and effective media awareness.

pakistan should do something on those lines. if it does... i dont think it will be very hard to contain in about 2 years.

 

[Hack-Hook]

I would hate to see Pakistanis with the infection venture out and infect fellow comrades or infect others in other countries. It wouldnt be fair, would it?

maybe the people we call ''leaders'' can get their thumbs out from far up in their arses so they could actually address the issue....incidentally, if a country like india (with a population of 1 billion, and much more urban congestion) can be taken off the polio list then it wont be a problem for Pakistan.

in just a few months the issue could be nipped in the bud, if only the government got its act together --and people (common man) were also more informed

not several month ,but several years yes.
in Iran in the years that we wanted to eradicate the Polio we have some problem in finding enough
personnel to vaccinate the children under 5 (because it was decided the vaccination to be successful
must be done at the children homes so no children could be missed) so we used willing High school
students for the vaccination . If Pakistan also do the same thing the amount of the money that government
must use on this project will be reduced dramatically .

 

[haviZsultan]

After the Bin Laden raid it is going to be one hell of a job convincing people that the Polio drops are not an unholy thing

 

[livingdead]

After the Bin Laden raid it is going to be one hell of a job convincing people that the Polio drops are not an unholy thing

We roped in bollywood to cricketiers to mullahs( to dispel fear among poor muslims in up/bihar). Sure you can get some patriotic mullah who will give his wisdom to people(possibly recite a few verse to sooth nerves).
Anything to kill polio.