Snowy Owl
Retired in 2010, In Memoriam
Muslim clerics roped in to speed up anti-polio drive
Lucknow, Aug 5: The health authorities in Uttar Pradesh have roped in Muslim clerics to administer polio drops to children from their community, who had been hesitant saying it was part of a Western conspiracy to make their children sterile.
A large number of Muslim women turned up along with their children (0-5 years) for administration of oral polio drops in Lucknow on Sunday.
"We are successful to a limit in allaying misconceptions about polio immunisation. People are coming with their children in large numbers to the centers," said Maulana Khalid Rashid, a Muslim cleric.
People in the community said that religious heads helped in allaying their fears.
"People had spread different kind of misconceptions - that after giving the dose, the child will not be able to reproduce when grows up. But such misconceptions have been removed and the clerics also issued statements in discouraging such beliefs, which has helped," said Ayaz Ahmad, a parent.
More than 500 cases of polio were reported across the country in 2006, out of which 443 were in Uttar Pradesh alone.
The polio outbreak in Uttar Pradesh, home to more than 170 million people, had fuelled fears that it could undermine global efforts to eradicate the disease, which is incurable and leads to irreversible paralysis among children.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), strain of the virus found in Uttar Pradesh has spread to neighbouring Nepal and Bangladesh, besides faraway Angola and Nambia. All four nations had been polio free.
India has stepped up efforts to combat polio by roping in thousands of volunteers to administer polio drops, especially in Uttar Pradesh where thousands of children were missed in earlier immunization rounds.
According to a 2006 WHO report, polio cases were reported in as many as nine divisions of UP, including Moradabad, Agra, Meerut, Saharanpur, Lucknow and Bareilly. Moradabad is the worst affected district with 56 cases, followed by Budaon (21), Muzaffarnagar (21), Meerut (20), J P Nagar (19), Rampur (17), Bijnore (17), Bareilly (12), Ghaziabad (9) and Lucknow (4).
This year too, out of the total 124 cases reported from the country, UP accounts for 98 followed by Bihar (17), Trranchal (3), and one each in Gujarat, Maharastra, Rajasthan and Haryana.
Copyright Dailyindia.com/ANI
Lucknow, Aug 5: The health authorities in Uttar Pradesh have roped in Muslim clerics to administer polio drops to children from their community, who had been hesitant saying it was part of a Western conspiracy to make their children sterile.
A large number of Muslim women turned up along with their children (0-5 years) for administration of oral polio drops in Lucknow on Sunday.
"We are successful to a limit in allaying misconceptions about polio immunisation. People are coming with their children in large numbers to the centers," said Maulana Khalid Rashid, a Muslim cleric.
People in the community said that religious heads helped in allaying their fears.
"People had spread different kind of misconceptions - that after giving the dose, the child will not be able to reproduce when grows up. But such misconceptions have been removed and the clerics also issued statements in discouraging such beliefs, which has helped," said Ayaz Ahmad, a parent.
More than 500 cases of polio were reported across the country in 2006, out of which 443 were in Uttar Pradesh alone.
The polio outbreak in Uttar Pradesh, home to more than 170 million people, had fuelled fears that it could undermine global efforts to eradicate the disease, which is incurable and leads to irreversible paralysis among children.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), strain of the virus found in Uttar Pradesh has spread to neighbouring Nepal and Bangladesh, besides faraway Angola and Nambia. All four nations had been polio free.
India has stepped up efforts to combat polio by roping in thousands of volunteers to administer polio drops, especially in Uttar Pradesh where thousands of children were missed in earlier immunization rounds.
According to a 2006 WHO report, polio cases were reported in as many as nine divisions of UP, including Moradabad, Agra, Meerut, Saharanpur, Lucknow and Bareilly. Moradabad is the worst affected district with 56 cases, followed by Budaon (21), Muzaffarnagar (21), Meerut (20), J P Nagar (19), Rampur (17), Bijnore (17), Bareilly (12), Ghaziabad (9) and Lucknow (4).
This year too, out of the total 124 cases reported from the country, UP accounts for 98 followed by Bihar (17), Trranchal (3), and one each in Gujarat, Maharastra, Rajasthan and Haryana.
Copyright Dailyindia.com/ANI