Summary Anti-polio campaign in Pakistan has suffered a bloody setback this week.
PESHAWAR:-The fight against polio in Pakistan, one of only three countries where the disease remains endemic, suffered a bloody setback this week as a spate of gun attacks left nine vaccination workers dead.
Immunisation efforts are also dogged by opposition from Taliban militants and suspicion about polio drops among parents.
Here are some key quotes:
-- Siddique Akbar 30, who runs a car centre in Peshawar, has three sons, aged six, four and two. He says he stopped giving his sons polio drops three years ago.
"I have been told by very reliable doctors and practitioners of herbal medicines that the vaccine contains an element which reduces sexual potential," he said.
"Our children will be become impotent when they grow up. That is why I have refused their inoculation."
Taj Gul, 32, property dealer on the outskirts of Peshawar who has two daughters aged four and two.
"We receive polio vaccine from abroad and there is no authentic research in Pakistan to determine what it contains," he said.
"I have authentic sources in health department who have told me that these drops have pig fats and another element which reduces instinctive power."
Maulana Abdul Ali, a 60-year old prayer leader at a Peshawar mosque.
"I have heard from senior clerics that there are some suspicions over the contents of polio vaccine and Islam forbids use of any substance about which you have suspicions," he said.
"If people come to seek my advice I tell them if I had kids or young children I would not permit them to take polio drops."
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a polio hotspot, said doubts about vaccination schemes were heightened when a Pakistani doctor was jailed after using a hepatitis program as cover to help the CIA track down Osama bin Laden in 2011.
"The local community has lost faith in polio vaccination after Dr Shakeel Afridi s saga," he said.
