PESHAWAR, Feb 8: Two women slip into the polio vaccination centre at the Khyber Teaching Hospital with a baby hidden under a shawl. They are scared and seem desperate to leave as soon as possible.

“My husband doesn’t know we are here. He does not want his children immunised against polio, because he says this is a western conspiracy to force birth control on people. But I want my son to be safe,” says Ajmeena Khan, 25, according to a report by the United Nations information unit, Irin.

She had smuggled her five-month-old son, Ozair, to the vaccination centre with her sister, while her husband was away at his shop.

Rizwan Ali, Campaign Manager with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Peshawar, says: “People refuse these drops for a variety of reasons. These include misconceptions or the notion that they are being promoted as part of an agenda against Islam or they believe that the drops could lead to infertility and are thus intended as a secret form of birth control.”

In addition, local communities have insisted certain demands be met before they allow their children to be immunised. According to WHO teams, the demands include provision of drinking water and salaries for government officials who have not been paid for months.

Mr Ali said there had been 24,288 refusals in January 2007. Of these, in 2,238 cases people put forward several demands before agreeing to the vaccination. In 1,347 cases, religious grounds were given for refusing the vaccine. The remainder cited misconceptions about the effect of the drops.

Health officials say such refusals have left at least 160,000 children vulnerable to polio.

In 2006, the federal health ministry reported 39 cases of polio, 15 of them in the NWFP. This was a 30 per cent increase over the figures for 2005.

There has been growing concern over the failure to eradicate the disease in the country despite a $196 million annual campaign.

Most refusals are covered in future visits, with social workers and local non-government organisations often called on to help change people’s minds.

In at least four cases during the year, immunisation teams were beaten, abused or driven away by local people.

Arman Khan, from a village on the outskirts of Peshawar, is one example: “These polio drops, and other injections are a conspiracy of the West. Our government is allied with them. They don't want Muslims to have children, because they will later join the ‘jihad’ against the West.''

Mr Khan’s two-year-old son has not been vaccinated and he has no intention of permitting the child his wife is expecting to be immunised either.

The government has also encouraged leading clerics to launch drives about the benefits of the vaccination.—PPI