Health workers are looking at the recent attacks on polio workers as a conspiracy hatched by some political forces to delay the upcoming general elections in the country for their political advantage by creating anarchy and refuse to believe that a Taliban mindset is responsible for these assassinations.
The general conception in the country is that those with a Taliban mindset are against polio vaccinations and there is almost a consensus in Pakistan that this recent wave of attacks on polio workers is the work of these extremists who have been targeting sensitive defence installations and law enforcement officials across the country for a while now. However, health officials do not seem to be buying this rhetoric.
Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) President Dr Samrina Hashmi, talking to Pakistan Today said, “The government held pro-Taliban people responsible for these attacks but polio teams have visited these areas before the recent three-day campaign on several occasions, each time returning safely”. “Why did they not kill health workers before?” she questioned. “Sure, there was resistance, with many people not willing to get their children vaccinated in these areas, but no one ever hurt health workers,” she stated. She believed that this recent wave of murders could be a political move by some elements to create a sense of anarchy and delay elections.
She reiterated her resolve to continue vaccinations and believed the situation would normalise once the political scenario stabilised. Vaccinators Welfare Association (VWA) Chairman Junaid Ahmed Shah told Pakistan Today that polio teams faced harassment in Mehmoodabad, Lines Area, Akhtar Colony and Sohrab Goth but it would be inappropriate to link the recent attacks to Pukhtuns living in bordering areas of the metropolis. “Our vaccination teams have been visiting these areas for years but have never been attacked in the past. So why are health workers being killed today?” he questioned. Shah, like Hashmi and several other paramedical and health workers viewed the recent attacks as part of the boiling political scenario in the country and opined that these attacks would seize after normalcy returned in the political quarters of the country.
