0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Pakistan's drive against polio has been thrown into chaos after a foreign doctor was shot in the southern port city of Karachi, a day after the Taliban reiterated a ban on immunisation in the country's tribal areas. A three-day nationwide immunisation campaign was launched on Monday but the Pakistan Taliban prohibited its administration in parts of the tribal area that borders Afghanistan, putting around 300,000 children at risk. Last year Pakistan was the country with the highest number of cases of polio. There has been a severe backlash against immunisation for polio and other diseases since the CIA used a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, to set up a fake vaccination programme as a cover for the hunt for Osama bin Laden in the northern town of Abbottabad, in the north western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Pashtuns, a conservative ethnic group, are the majority in that province and the tribal area. "The Shakil Afridi factor has had an impact. Not all over Pakistan, but in certain parts, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the Pashtun community. Also in certain Pashtun communities in Karachi," said Shahnaz Wazir Ali, a senior adviser to the prime minister, who is overseeing the polio eradication campaign.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were: "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches. Tingly!
