Photo: People carry the coffin of Lubna Mahmood (26), an aid worker. Copied from 3news, original source Reuters
About this outrageous crime, let me first quote the Jan. 3 3news report Pakistanis bury slain teachers, aid workers, by Inam Ur Rehman:
Below - the viewpoint of the world medical community, from the Jan. 5 Lancet editorial Global polio eradication: not there yet
About this outrageous crime, let me first quote the Jan. 3 3news report Pakistanis bury slain teachers, aid workers, by Inam Ur Rehman:
"Hundreds of villagers in northwest Pakistan turned out Wednesday
to bury five female teachers and two health workers who were gunned down a day
earlier by militants in what may have been the latest in a series of attacks
targeting anti-polio efforts in the country.
Below - the viewpoint of the world medical community, from the Jan. 5 Lancet editorial Global polio eradication: not there yet
"...Recently, the global effort to eradicate polio has suffered devastating
setbacks. In mid-December, nine health workers were shot dead while travelling
from house to house to administer polio vaccine to children during the national
anti-polio campaign in Pakistan. And on Jan 1, six female Pakistani aid workers
and a male doctor were shot dead... Owing to the
safety concerns, the UN was forced to halt its participation in the vaccination
campaign, and the campaign itself has been suspended temporarily by the
Government of Pakistan and the affected provinces.
...Most of the health workers who were killed were women, and the youngest
was a schoolgirl aged 17 years. Female health workers are standing fearlessly
and selflessly on the frontline of Pakistan's war against polio, because
culturally only women are allowed to enter into houses to talk to mothers and
vaccinate their children. Last June, in Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the
Pakistani Taliban banned polio vaccination in retaliation for the use of
unmanned drones by the USA. It is of deep concern that women who stand for
something big have become the Pakistani Taliban's target. Female polio health
workers are one example; the schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, whom the Taliban shot
in the head in October for campaigning for access to education—another essential
ingredient in promoting children's health—is another...
Heidi Larson, an anthropologist who studies public trust
in vaccines and immunisation at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine, pointed out that the killings of health workers in Pakistan could be a
“game changer”... She compared it with the 2003-04 immunisation boycott in
northern Nigeria, led by religious and political leaders, who claimed that the
oral polio vaccine could cause sterility. This boycott led to poliovirus not
only rebounding in Nigeria, but also spreading to 15 African countries and to
Indonesia...
To eradicate polio, the work that the brave polio health workers died for must
be continued in 2013..."
No comments:
Post a Comment