Two drops of life

Despite a successful campaign against polio, the deadly disease is showing signs of resurgence, especially in Muslim-dominated districts of UP

Nasrin Sultana Delhi

Do boond zindagi ki... (Two drops of life). Two drops that can decide whether a child will walk or limp or even die. Amitabh Bachchan calls polio a terrorist on national television. Celebrated sports and film stars plead and exhort with people through public interest advertisements on channels to administer polio vaccine to their children and prevent the virus from spreading. The high profile, high voltage media campaign seems to have marginal impact. The once near-extinct polio is on a menacing comeback trail.

The ministry of health and family welfare has been engaged in a massive polio-eradication drive since 1994. Hoardings advertising pulse polio vaccinations used to be a regular sight at traffic lights, schools and hospitals in cities and towns. People queued up at polio booths on what came to be known as polio Sundays, and nurses visited homes to take the vaccine to people with small children. Pulse polio was on the way to being wiped off.  Unfortunately, the diminishing numbers are climbing back, causing concern and consternation among health officials.

Despite the initial success of massive television ad campaigns featuring popular Bollywood actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, the new numbers show a puzzling reversal. According to one UNICEF report, there were a total of 597 polio cases in India in 2006 as against 66 in 2005. On December 23, PTI reported 13 fresh polio cases in India out of which 12 cases are from UP and one from Delhi. This addition takes the total number of polio cases in India to 610. Delhi used to have an average of 500 annual polio cases in 1994-95, a number that dropped to two in 2004 and one in 2005, but has risen again to five in 2006. Uttar Pradesh has registered an alarming rise to 489 cases in 2006 compared to 29 in 2005.

The upward trend of polio cases in UP is being attributed to the fact that many Muslims in the state have turned hesitant, and even hostile, about allowing their children to be given the polio vaccine. Some doctors and health officials have gone so far as to say that the Muslim community’s hesitation is preventing India from becoming a polio-free nation. According to sources, the reason behind this reluctance on the part of the Muslims could be an article published in a Lucknow-based Urdu magazine, Tamir-e-Hayat, which claims that the polio vaccine which is manufactured in the US causes infertility, and that it is targeted at eradicating the Muslim community. This has apparently left the Muslim community very disturbed.

Although it is unclear as to what extent this misinformation is affecting immunisation efforts, it is true that 70 per cent of polio cases in India occur among uneducated and poor minorities, even though Muslims account for only 13 per cent of India's population

Shabina Begum, 27, mother of two children aged two and five, of Jamia Nagar, Delhi, says, “When a nurse came to our house to administer polio drops some years ago, I allowed my son to take them. Now that I have heard about the conspiracy about making our children sterile, I will never allow them to come near us again.” Her husband, Yusuf Ali, 34, a rickshaw puller, fails to persuade his wife to put away her fear and suspicion.