HEALTH: Haj Pilgrims Get Polio Drops in Int’l Eradication Plan
Global Politics Online / IPS
Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Nov 13 (IPS) – As the first batches of Haj pilgrims from Pakistan arrived at Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah airport for the current pilgrimage season they were, regardless of age, administered oral polio vaccine (OPV).
Saudi Arabia, a polio-free country, is taking every precaution to prevent transmission of the crippling, paediatric disease from visitors belonging to four countries — Pakistan, Nigeria, India and Afghanistan — where the wild polio virus is still circulating.
”Pakistanis will be administered OPV, regardless of age and vaccination status, on their arrival in Saudi Arabia,” the national manager for the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Dr Hussain Bux Memon, told media.
Terming it a ”good policy” to prevent the international spread of polio,” Dr Ni’ma Abid, polio team leader for the World Health Organisation (WHO), in Pakistan, told IPS: ”It might be useful to show that a leading Muslim country is asking for polio drops to be administered as a prerequisite for Haj which means that the vaccine doesn’t contain haram (forbidden) ingredients,” he said.
He averred that polio can occur in adults and thus OPV should be administered to adults as well. ”Adults can also transmit the infection without being affected by the disease.”
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