Economic impactVaccination teams resumed polio inoculations in Pakistan in September. They confronted both a reinvigorated polio virus and psychological resistance to vaccinations worsened by grievances over the economic damage of Covid-19 lockdowns.
Those problems added to the old hurdles of misinformation and concerns the polio drops violate Islamic dietary laws or were a conspiracy to harm Muslims.Sitting on the steps of a kitchenware shop in a polio hot spot in the northwest city of Peshawar, Watan Dost spoke to a vaccination team accompanied by an Islamic cleric for an hour as they tried to persuade him to allow his four children to get the free inoculation.They failed. “It is fate, God’s will.