[Dawn] A three-day immunisation against polio...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...
drive concluded in the city on Wednesday, with a majority of parents convinced of the need and cooperating with the immunisation teams.
But there were pockets in the city where some parents refused the polio vaccination because they had been told that it is a matter of fate.
"Our Maulvi sahib says Islam does not permit polio vaccination. It is bad for the health of our children, especially of the boys," Adil Khan, a migrant worker from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
living in the Fauji Colony, told Dawn.
"What putting some drops in the mouth of a child can do if he is fated to be stricken by polio," he asked, echoing the Imam of a mosque in the colony located on I.J. Principal Road, just across the boundary of Islamabad.
Many residents of the colony had refused to listen to the local health department's pep talk before the launch of the vaccination campaign and turned away the immunisation teams that arrived later.
A holy man of the colony had more sway over its residents, mostly hailing from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
Mufti Bashir, the Sunni Deobandi holy man of the Masjid-e-Yasin, had reportedly issued a religious edict against the immunisation programme.
Polio vaccinators turned back by the community reported their dilemma to District Coordination Officer Saqib Zafar and Executive District Health Officer Dr Zafar Iqbal Gondal on Tuesday.