Indian Muslims have highest rate of Polio because they are refusing to take vaccines.
Indian government has been trying to eradicate polio by vaccinating everyone.
Like most vaccinators, these women weren’t professional health workers but local residents paid slightly more than a dollar a day for their efforts. One woman was covered head to toe in black, traditional Muslim attire; another looked positively festive in a bright yellow, flowing outfit.
Davke Yadav, the woman in yellow, reported to Bahl that one family had refused to allow their children to be vaccinated. But Yadav wasn’t about to give up.
“I talked to them for 15 minutes, and they finally relented,” she said.
Overcoming resistance from parents continues to be a challenge. Some Muslims, particularly those from poor, uneducated backgrounds, suspect that the Indian government had added a sterilization drug to the vaccine to control Muslim population growth.
In India, often with the help of local imams, the fears of most Muslims appear to have been eased.
“I used to think that if I give my child this polio drug, the next generation would vanish,” said Fareeda Mohammed, who lives down a back alley in a Muslim section of Moradabad city.
Repeated assurances from a local UNICEF worker, herself a Muslim, persuaded Mohammed to let her 2-year-old daughter, Hina, take the vaccine.
Bahl himself intervened at the Moradabad train station when he asked a few of the poor families sprawled out on blankets on the concrete floor if their children had been vaccinated. Most had. But Bahl noticed that one child whose father said he had been vaccinated didn’t have the ink mark on his pinky nail that vaccinators use to show whom they’ve immunized.
After considerable coaxing, the parents reluctantly agreed to let their 18-month-old son be vaccinated.
But his father, who goes by the name Miyajan, said his family is homeless and complained that the government offers them polio vaccine but no shelter.
“I used to refuse the polio drug, because the government isn’t doing anything for me,” he said. “Today, I allowed it, because the doctor came and insisted.”
With such persistence, the vaccinators may yet succeed. This year, India has had only 68 cases, the fewest ever at this point in the year. But history warns against overconfidence.
The number of polio cases dropped to near zero in India in early 2001 and success appeared to be on the horizon. The government and international health experts decided to slow the pace of immunization. It was a mistake. Polio came back with a vengeance in 2002, crippling 1,600 children.
The number of polio cases dropped to near zero in India in early 2001. Then the pace of immunization slowed, and polio came back with a vengeance in 2002, crippling 1,600 children.