Already seventeen cases of polio have been recorded in the country. It's not only the illiterate parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated against the dreaded disease. About forty years back I asked an engineer if he had got his first child vaccinated. He laughed. "It's all a scam to make vaccine manufacturers rich", he said. This is what many Americans believe as well, and some of them are suffering from the after-effects of Covid.
In Pakistan, however, the problem is compounded by clerics and some influential people. Many years ago, there was a mullah who used the FM radio channels to brainwash housewives into believing that vaccination causes male children to be impotent, and female children to be infertile. "This is one way of reducing our population devised by the evil Westerners", he used to say. No wonder many polio women workers have been killed in the northern areas of the country, and in those districts where Pathans live.
So I doubt if this and successive governments will ever eradicate polio in country. They should give up trying and the money saved can be used for treating people suffering from cancer or other diseases.
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