Religious groups obstruct polio immunisation

Mobile polio vaccination teams operating in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) are facing increasing resistance from religious groups, which have confused the teams with aid workers promoting contraception, a practice deemed unIslamic, a UN official told IRIN on Monday. “This concerns us enormously, as they are turning teams away, leaving the children vulnerable,” Dr Suleman Daud Khan, UNICEF’s project officer for health and nutrition in the provincial capital, Peshawar, said. In collaboration with WHO and local health officials, UNICEF is sending 1,400 mobile teams into areas of the NWFP to carry out six rounds of polio immunisation polio this year. During the last round in late August, Daud Khan said teams had been turned away from villages in Bannu and Lakki Marwat districts, where “strong religious sentiment” had led to the community refusing to allow them in. “There have been programmes run by NGOs in the past where they have been distributing contraceptives, which the religious leaders objected to, and they are now confusing us with them,” he said. Explaining that village leaders had accused some aid agencies of promoting unIslamic values, Daud Khan said it was very difficult for the teams to operate without the community’s support. He added that both Bannu and Lakki Marwat were “high priority” areas for polio eradication, and had the second-highest rate of cases in the country. At present, there were said to be 16 cases in the NWFP. “We need a high level of vaccination coverage in these areas,” Daud Khan said. He explained that UNICEF was now trying to focus on educating villagers in the two areas to raise awareness of how important it was for them to make sure children were immunised. With the next round of immunisation set for 25 September, Daud Khan said it was crucial for them to get into the community to resolve the problem of vaccination teams gaining access. Another problem slowing down the immunisation programme in parts of the NWFP, is the reluctance for local people to allow female teams into villages, something Daud Khan labelled as a cultural problem. He stressed that women would continue to operate as they were vital in having access to houses where children had been missed in the drive against polio. “Men are often not allowed inside houses here,” he explained. Daud Khan said the polio virus was quick to spread in communities, and if found in one baby, it could mean that between 200 and 600 babies in the same vicinity might also have the virus. With a deadline of 2003 to declare Pakistan polio free, the mobile vaccination teams must be persistent in the NWFP if the country was to reach its target, he said.