Dhakka: In some parts of western Uttar Pradesh (UP), during the election season, a voter identification card or a ration card is the price some families ask, for allowing their kids to be vaccinated against polio.
In Dhakka village of the state’s Jyotiba Phule Nagar district, such requests come from the last among the very few families that say no to the government’s efforts to get their children vaccinated against the polio virus, which is endemic in these parts.
Local push: Mohammed Afsar Hussain is one of the so-called local influencers used by Unicef and district health officials to bring families to the vaccination booth every month. Rahul Chandran / Mint
This is a far cry from July 2006 when over a 15-day period, most Muslim families refused the polio vaccine—which is administered orally—after a report in a local Urdu newspaper. The report, which said the vaccine contained ingredients that Muslims consider as
haraam (an Arabic word for forbidden) found its way to a madrasa in Dhakka village.
It’s a problem that has repeated itself elsewhere across UP and Maharashtra. The distribution of newspaper reports and pamphlets questioning the vaccine have led to several families staying away from the so-called polio rounds organized by the government.
The difficulties that volunteers face in administering polio vaccine in Dhakka and numerous other villages in western UP is reflective of the larger problems faced in polio eradication efforts across the country. While children receive several rounds of the vaccine, they don’t often stay in the body long enough to give immunity because the child suffers from diarrhoea, local volunteers say. Malnutrition, which many children in these areas suffer from, decreases the efficacy of the drug, too. So does unhygienic drinking water.
A village of some 15,000 people, Dhakka in Hasanpur sub-district is one of several areas in western UP that is designated a high-risk area for the wild polio virus by the government.
Within 15 days of the refusals, local community organizers from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, or Unicef, and district administration officials got
ulemas (religious leaders) of local madrasas to counter the claims, through sermons and appeals in Hindi and urdu publications.
“Earlier, the women used to hide their kids,” said Maulana Ghiyasuddin Qasmi, who teaches at the Jamia Millia Maariful Quran madrasa in nearby Ujhari town in Amroha, the Lok Sabha constituency under which Dhakka village falls. Qasmi wrote an appeal urging the community to not boycott the polio rounds.