PESHAWAR: Voicing concern over the growing violence against polio workers and high vaccination refusal incidence in the country, a Peshawar-based ulema organisation has offered its services to the government for fighting the childhood crippling disease.

In a three-page letter sent to the president, prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman on Thursday, the National Research and Development Foundation (NRDF), which has 7,000 ulema as members, said it was shocked at the growing violence against polio workers and therefore, it wanted to help the government meet the problem and thus, contributing to the polio eradication efforts.

It said it had played a significant role in reducing polio vaccination refusal cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas between November 2009 and 2012 in partnership with the government and Unicef but the unceremonious termination of the partnership dealt a serious blow to the children’s vaccination in the region.

According to the letter signed by NRDF chief coordinator Tahseenullah Khan, the organisation is immensely concerned at the WHO announcement that Peshawar is the world’s largest polio virus reservoir; 83 out of the 91 polio cases in Pakistan last year were genetically linked to strains in Peshawar, and 12 of the 13 cases reported in Afghanistan last year were also linked to Peshawar.

“We are distressed over the killing of polio workers, sharp increase in the number of polio cases and soaring number of families refusing vaccination to their children.

“And the blame on Pakistan for being responsible for transportation of polio to Syria, Egypt and Israel was shocking and might lead to the imposition of travel restrictions and conversion of that grant into loan which Pakistan has received for the Polio eradication,” it said.

The NRDF has a rich track record of scaling up awareness of health, education and other social issues, including polio eradication, since 1993.

Under Religious Leaders Involvement in Polio Eradication Initiative, the Unicef had hired its services on the recommendation of health department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata in November 2009 for six months in two violence-prone districts of the province

and as many tribal agencies on pilot basis.

And after the successful implementation, the programme was expanded to the entire province and Fata.

“Within two years, the foundation with the help of ulema from all school of thoughts played a lead role to directly cover over 26,000 refusals and overturn the ban on polio vaccination in South and North Waziristan and Bajaur agencies on three different occasions,” it said.

The NRDF also managed to counter the fallout on immunisation from Dr Shakil Afridi running a fake vaccination campaign to help the US find Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, besides helping extend the programme’s scope to inaccessible areas in many districts, agencies and Frontier Regions effectively.

“The foundation members voluntarily delivered sermons in favour of polio eradication, made announcements from mosques, and got oral polio vaccine administered to children by religious scholars and thus, creating demand for vaccine,” it said. The success of the Religious Leaders Involvement in Polio Eradication Initiative is evident from the fact that Unicef presented it to the federal government as innovation model on June 28, 2012.

However, the unceremonious termination of the programme by Unicef in November 2012 forced hundreds of religious leaders and seminaries to disassociate themselves from the polio eradication efforts and thus, endangering the children’s health.

End of the programme led to a steep increase in vaccination refusal cases and circulation of the virus in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata.

According to the NRDF, any further delay in polio eradication will have serious repercussion for the country and its people by bringing travel restrictions and penalties worth billions of dollars.

“In light of the deteriorating law and order situation, we are offering our services to support the government in its anti-polio efforts through mobilising its network of ulema for the national cause,” it said.

In the letter, the NRDF said it was ready to scale up public awareness of vaccines in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Fata, Karachi and Quetta.