HARIPUR: A man has demanded police action against a polio team claiming his infant daughter died shortly after being vaccinated on Wednesday in Khalo village council of Ghazi tehsil.

Electrician Tassadaq Hussain told the police that the polio team vaccinated his 55-day-old daughter, Zainab Bibi, but she began coughing and vomiting shortly thereafter before breathing her last at night.

He claimed that his daughter was healthy before polio drops were administered to her and therefore, he strongly believed that the vaccination claimed her life.

Mr Hussain demanded action against vaccinators.

When contacted, SHO of Ghazi police station Sardar Javed confirmed that his office had received a written complaint from Tassadaq Hussain against the polio team. He said the police asked the complainant to take the body to the hospital for postmortem to ascertain the exact cause of death but he declined.

The district health officer was not available for comments.

However, a member of the polio team claimed on condition of anonymity that the infant was unwell before he was given polio drops and her mother didn’t tell vaccinators about her condition.

He said the same team administered the same vaccine to over 2,000 children in the locality but none of them reported its adverse effect on their health.

The polio team member said the vaccine didn’t carry anything harmful to human health and that it had efficacy of international standards.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2018