KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Authorities in one Pakistani province are turning to a controversial tactic to eradicate polio: prison.
Last month, the government in Sindh province put forward a proposal to send parents to jail for a month who do not take their children to be vaccinated against polio or eight other common diseases.
Experts from the World Health Organization and others fear the strategy will only worsen distrust in vaccines, especially in a country where conspiracy theories abound and many vaccinators have been shot to death.
Which makes matters worse for experts trying to convince people of the benefits of getting vaccinated: the same oral vaccines are currently the cause of most polio cases in the world.
WHO’s polio director for the Eastern Mediterranean, Hamid Jafari, warned that the new law could have the opposite effect.
“Coercion is counterproductive,” said Dr. Jafari.
He added that health workers are usually able to increase vaccination rates in areas where skepticism prevails by finding the reasons for that skepticism and eliminating them, such as bringing trusted politicians or religious leaders on site to talk to the community. .
“My opinion is that Pakistan wants to have this law in its pocket in case it needs it,” Jafari said. “I would be surprised if there was actually a willingness to enforce such coercive measures.”
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio has never been eradicated. The potentially fatal and paralyzing disease usually affects children up to age 5 and is spread through contaminated water.
The WHO and other related foundations have administered billions of vaccines since they began trying to eradicate the disease in 1988. The campaign costs nearly $1 billion a year and is funded largely by donor countries and organizations such as the World Health Organization. Bill & Melinda Gates.
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Cheng reported from London.
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The Associated Press receives support for its health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for the content.
2023-10-01 18:07:42
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