A piece on NHPR the other morning talked about eradicating polio in Pakistan. The Pakistani's mounted a massive vaccination campaign, thousands of workers, going every where, and vaccinating every child they found. The case rate dropped from several hundred polio cases a year down to this year, just one case so far.
Trouble is, the vaccination program is encountering Pakistani parents who refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated. The one polio case this year was a child whose parents refused vaccination, several times. Vaccination program workers are reporting resistance and threats of violence.
I gotta wonder about a culture so poisonous that it prefers to see their young children die of a horrible disease rather than give them a life saving vaccine. I remember back when the polio vaccine was first invented. They set up tables outside in the Saxonville School yard, and in one day, they vaccinated every single kid in Saxonville including me. Parents supported it 100%.
No comments:
Post a Comment