PESHAWAR: A Taliban ban on polio vaccinations will put 240,000 children at risk in troubled northwest Pakistan if an inoculation campaign cannot start next week, officials warned Friday.
Local Taliban and Pakistani warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur, whose followers are fighting Western troops in Afghanistan, have banned polio vaccinations in the northwestern tribal region of Waziristan to protest against US drone attacks.
They have condemned the immunisation campaign, which is slated to begin on Monday, as a cover for espionage.
Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afridi was jailed for 33 years in May after helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden using a hepatitis vaccination programme as cover.
**The Lancet medical journal has said vaccination problems led last year to Pakistan’s highest number of polio cases in a decade, 198, compared to 144 in 2010.
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**Polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.
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The highly infectious disease affects mainly the under-fives and can cause paralysis in a matter of hours. Some cases can be fatal.
Dr Shakeel Afridi’s acti will continue to haunt for a long time to come. And what a price it’s going to take: 240,000 children at risk.
It should not do anything. The army should stay away. The Army is not our saviour. Its not our mommy that we run to it every time we have a boo boo. We have a civilian government. Let them sort it out.
right, its not the army job, its the feredal govt responsibility to make sure that these kids get vaccinated
but again, why hold any expectations from the govt.
there has to be some other way out, maybe these same vaccinations can be supplied to local hospitals and then locals could take their kids there?
They must be reading your post and laughing like hell.