Cleric stops opposing polio vaccination

Personal grief leads to restoration of sanity. A living case of that:

PESHAWAR: Maulana Merajuddin, an Afghan cleric living in Pakistan, stopped opposing the use of polio drops after his own child fell prey to the crippling disease – the first ever polio case detected in Khyber Agency, in January 2007.

Mirajuddin, who lives in the Mastak area of Bara tehsil, told Daily Times that his two-year-old son Gul Khan was paralysed in January 2007, and doctors at the Jamrud Civil Hospital told him that his son had fallen victim to polio. “I made a mistake by opposing the visit of a polio-vaccination team to my village. I was impressed by the maulvis’ propaganda,” he recalled, and said polio had paralysed his son and made him a burden on his family forever.

“My child is suffering from paralysis. We spent a lot of money and time but could not find signs of recovery,” he said.

A majority of clerics in the NWFP and FATA oppose the polio immunisation campaign. Maulana Fazlullah of Swat and Haji Namdar, head of hardline organisation Amer Bilmaroof Wa Nahi Anilmunkar in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency, have often asked locals to boycott polio immunisation campaigns through their illegal radio stations. They say polio vaccines make children infertile and that the vaccination is a Western attempt to curtail the growing population of the Muslim world. Following directions from religious leaders, a number of people refused polio drops for their children and banned the entry of polio campaigners to their areas in FATA and NWFP. “Now I am sure that there are no infertility elements in the polio vaccine as a Muslim doctor has made it clear to me,” Mirajuddin said.