An edict issued after a meeting of Ulema and experts brushed aside rumours about harmful affects of polio vaccine and urged parents to immunise against crippling disease.
"Drops were safe and no anti-fertility agent are added to it at any stage of its manufacturing nor any such agent is present in the final product," said, the edict announced by a meeting of Ulema and experts held at the Peshawar Medical College (PMC) here on Sunday.
PMC's principal Dr Najeebul Haq told the meeting jointly organised by the WHO, Unicef and health department that polio affected 3,50,000 kids annually in 1988 in 125 countries of the world, mostly those inhabited by the Muslims.
Due to the vaccination, number of polio affected countries had now been brought only to six. During the last 17-year since launching the global campaign, five million children have been saved from getting paralysed.
He said rumour about OPV had caused immense damage in Nigeria and also slowed down the pace of campaign in Muslim populated areas in India. The rumours, he said, were aimed to portray that the Muslim were great hurdle in the campaign against polio. Pakistan had recorded 25,000 cases in 1994, 558 in 1999, 28 in 2005, whereas the number of polio affected children was 12 this year so far, he said.
NWFP Health Minister Inayatullah Khan, health experts, policy makers and representatives of donor agencies were informed that the drops were procured by UN agencies, particularly by Unicef, met the specifications set forth by the International Expert Committee on Biological Standardisation (ECBS).
"These specifications make it impossible for OPV to contain any other undeclared biological active substances such as viruses, hormones or other materials," he said adding that WHO was verifying that manufactures of the OPV, used in the Global Polio Eradication Initiatives had met international ECBS specifications.
Senator Professor Khurshid Ahmad, Maulana Mehmood Ashraf Usmani, Mufti Ghulamur Rehman, Maulana Syed Naseeb Ali Shah, Mufti Munibur Rehman, Hafiz Hasan Madani, Qari Rohullah Madani, Dr Atta-ur-Rehman and others singed the edict.
Participants included Dr Abdul Jabbar, team leader PEI WHO NWFP, Dr Azhar and Dr Aiman of the Unicef, Secretary Health Abdus Samad Khan, Director General Health Dr Jalilur Rehman, Principal PMC, Dr Najeebul Haq WHO operations officer Dr Mohammad Saeed Akbar Khan, Dr Rehan A. Hafiz, National Programme Manager EPI, deputy director EPI NWFP Dr Waheed Khan, and others.
WHO country chief Dr Khalife Mahmud Bile said during last 17 years more than 10 billion doses of polio vaccines had been provided to more than one billion children globally.
"No side effects have been reported in this period," he remarked. Referring to rumours about polio vaccine, he said quality and safety of polio vaccines was guaranteed and the experts were well known to its trust-worthiness and also had knowledge of religious rulings.
He said the same vaccines, used in Pakistan, were being administered in 50 other Muslim countries. The expert said OPV used in Pakistan was of the same high quality as was being administered globally.