...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
vaccination teams imposed in protest at US drone strikes, officials said Wednesday.
Local warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur Saturday banned the anti-polio campaign in North
Wazoo, a Taliban and al Qaeda-infested region bordering Afghanistan."We have requested the governor of northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
province to direct the political agent (administrator) of North Waziristan to open a dialogue with this group," a senior government official told AFP.
Bahadur, who is allied with Afghan Taliban fighting US-led troops across the border, said the ban would remain until the US stops drone attacks in the tribal region.
"On the one hand they are killing innocent women, children and old people in drone attacks and on the other they are spending millions on vaccination campaign," he said in a statement distributed in the region's main town Miranshah
... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a
ministatein centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas...
The government official said vaccinating all children in the tribal areas was a top priority in Pakistain's polio eradication programme.
"The federal government has told the governor to use all available means to ensure that the polio campaigns in the tribal area are not disrupted for the sake of tribal children in particular and Pakistain in general," the official said.
A senior health official said authorities were concerned about the safety of vaccination teams in North Waziristan.
"With a vaccination campaign coming up this week, we are concerned for over 161,000 children under five in the area who require the polio vaccination, many of whom have never been vaccinated even once against this crippling disease,"he said.
"We are also very concerned for the safety of front line polio workers who, despite great personal risk, work to ensure every child is vaccinated."Officials said the polio vaccination programme had made headway this year in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Pakistain is one of just three countries where polio remains endemic, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria.
The highly infectious disease affects mainly the under-fives and can cause paralysis in a matter of hours. Some cases can be fatal.