THE deaths of five children — aged between two and nine years — from Qila Saifullah because of allegedly outdated vaccination have raised many questions.

However, Balochistan Health Minister Saleh Baloch appeared quite unruffled at the news conference and rejected the claim that the deaths had occurred because of outdated vaccines.

I fail to find any logic when the minister defended his negligence and said that another 18 children of Batuzai area had also been vaccinated during the campaign, but were in a good health; only seven of them were afflicted by loose motion and nausea for some time.

I just would like to put a question to the health minister: isn’t it possible that the vaccinations that were injected were outdated and there could be many others that are expired and still being injected in hapless children of the area?

The minister should not come up with lame excuses, and should, instead, take action against the ones who are responsible for this negligence.

Hussain Marri
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2015

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