Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Accessed 11 January 2014
Politicians, Muslim scholars join vaccination effort as violence hinders Pakistan polio drive
By Pamela Constable, Published: January 11
Excerpt
AKORA KHATTAK, Pakistan — In the tribal badlands of Pakistan’s northwest, where Pakistani soldiers and American drones target Taliban insurgents, a parallel war is being waged over a crippling virus that endures in only three places in the world.
Last year, 83 new polio cases were reported in Pakistan, more than in either Afghanistan or Nigeria, the other countries where it is endemic.
But aggressive efforts to combat the virus are being hampered by a surge of attacks attributed to Islamist extremists. In the past three months, at least a dozen government vaccinators or their police escorts have been killed or wounded in the northwest region near the Afghan border.
Now officials hope that by enlisting influential Pakistanis, including Muslim scholars, in a high-profile campaign to endorse polio vaccines, they can defeat the shadowy gunmen and the remnants of doubt about the program among devout Muslims.
“This has been a very difficult campaign, but the problems are limited to a very few areas,” said Elias Durry, a doctor with the World Health Organization in Islamabad who heads the national polio vaccine campaign. “In places where the vaccinators can go, there is very little resistance. The major problem is that most cases are coming from areas where the vaccinators are not able to go.”…
vaccines and global health :: ethics and policy 