A rumour purporting vaccination under Pulse Polio immunisation campaign has caused several deaths in southern Pulwama district sent Kashmir panicky on Sunday afternoon with parents rushing to hospital
A rumour purporting vaccination under Pulse Polio immunisation campaign has caused several deaths in southern Pulwama district sent Kashmir panicky on Sunday afternoon with parents rushing to hospitals across the Valley with their children for medical examination.
Witnesses said that many women who thronged hospitals with their children who had been administered the polio drops at various health care facilities earlier during the day were wailing.
Men too were emotionally distressed and started crying while pleading before the doctors to attend on their children. Worst traffic jams were also witnessed on roads leading to hospitals and other healthcare facilities in Srinagar and other major towns of the Valley.
The authorities immediately swung into action, using all available means of communication, including radio, television, newspaper portals and social networking sites to deny any deaths have taken place anywhere in the Valley. “There is no need to panic as tests conducted on the children are normal,” they said.
They also strongly denied that expired polio drops were administered to children at any healthcare facility in the Valley as part of the Pulse Polio campaign on Sunday.
Chief medical officer Pulwama Fayaz Ahmad said that no child has died or even fallen ill due to polio drops in the district.
Many people took to Facebook and Twitter to ask stern action against rumour-mongers. “Those who spread this rumour must be hanged in (Srinagar’s) Lal Chowk. Don’t realise how much pain it has caused to parents,” said one of them. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah tweeted: “Everyone must play whatever part they can to stop this attempt at using rumours to spread unnecessary panic.”
The J&K health department had set up as many as 11,000 booths across the state and made over 2.5 million doses available at these as part of first phase of Pulse Polio campaign for this year launched by the commissioner secretary health and medical education department, Dr M.K. Bhandari, at Government Hospital, Gandhi Nagar, Jammu, on Sunday morning.
