...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...
workers continue to be cut down in the country, few outraged voices are heard condemning their murder or demanding justice.
On Tuesday, two Lady Health Workers and their guard were rubbed out in the Danna area of Mansehra
...
a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...district. And yesterday, one vaccinator died and another was injured in an attack for which responsibility was claimed by the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban in Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central
...Smallest of the agencies in FATA. The Agency administration is located in Khar. Bajaur is inhabited almost exclusively by Tarkani Pashtuns, which are divided into multiple bickering subtribes. Its 52 km border border with Afghanistan's Kunar Province makes it of strategic importance to Pakistain's strategic depth...
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Will the deaths of these brave individuals serve to shake up state and society and prod the country into finding the wherewithal to push back against the threat? This is unlikely, since the latest victims are far from the first polio vaccinators to have met a brutal end in a hail of bullets.
In such cases, the response from the state, which has hardly gone beyond providing a guard or two to protect the vaccinators, has been demoralising to say the least. The killing of polio workers -- and their protectors -- is an issue which has now taken its place among the myriad other challenges that have faded into the background to become just another unfortunate reality in this country.
At just about every level -- from the administrative and health authorities to the families of the children potentially at risk -- there appears to be little realisation that polio, which is easily transmissible, is fast proving to be a national calamity that has alarmed even the international community.
The warnings could not be clearer: rising incidence of the disease, growing violence against the teams administering the vaccination, the fear factor faced by parents who are intimidated into refusal by retrogressive elements.
The presence of the virus is being confirmed at more and more locations across the country, with interior Sindh (Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
has had a polio problem for a considerable period of time) being the latest to find the alarm being raised.
It is difficult to predict how and when this situation can be reversed. Those against the polio vaccination effort appear focused and implacable in their intentions to deter health workers from vaccinating children.