Polio vaccinations:
Cricketers drive the message home
Not all scientists are cricket fans, and not all cricketers are scientists,
but here's an area where the two topics intersect.
Indian cricket fans are showing their support for their captain in an
unusual way. They're getting their children vaccinated against the polio
virus.
"If Saurav Ganguly tells kids to get vaccinated against polio, they
do,"
says Savita Varde-Naqvi of the children's charity UNICEF in the Indian
capital of New Delhi. "We needed a massive social mobilization effort and
Indian people eat, drink and breathe cricket!"
And the Indian cricket captain did indeed tell the children to get
vaccinated.
"It's a bit like that one crucial catch in the slog overs that could
turn
the match in our favour," Ganguly said at a press conference just before
departing for South Africa. "So just as we are ready to pounce on the sharp
chance in the slips or at point or at the silly mid-on, you must keep your
eyes peeled for the closest polio booth."
In the run-up to the World Cup, while other teams were strategising, resting
from injuries or practicing, the entire Indian cricket team as well as a few
former captains and commentators were busy telling adults that if they wanted to
support their squad, they should get their babies and young children vaccinated
during the World Cup.
"They said that the children can't run between the wickets or field if
they
have polio," says Varde-Naqvi. "They loved the chance to give
something back to their fans."
In a long-standing tradition of subcontinental cricketers' involvement in
health and medical needs, the X1 hosted public events, competitions and
appeared in television commercials, particularly in the worst-hit state of
Uttar Pradesh in the north of India.
Uttar Pradesh is India's main polio problem because it is both very poor and
very crowded. Also, it has other medical issues to contend with, such as
malnutrition and malaria, which take higher priority.
"If the virus could go on holiday, it would go to Uttar Pradesh,"
says Bruce
Aylward, head of the World Health Organisation's global polio eradication
initiative. "There are massive populations, densely packed together."
The populations may be massive but they're divided along caste and religious
lines, which makes fighting polio difficult. Socially excluded groups in the
state, such as religious minorities, distrust the authorities and seldom
take their offspring to vaccination centres and clinics.
But UNICEF's Varde-Naqvi - herself a keen cricket fan - found that the sport
transcended the divide between urban and rural and bridged all kinds of
barriers. "They'll listen to the cricketers. They won't listen to me,"
she
notes wryly. The team leapt at the chance to fight polio, even giving the
campaign a title: Bowl Out Polio.
"Let's blast it out of the ground," says master blaster Sachin
Tendulkar.
"My wife is a doctor. She makes sure that our kids have received all
immunization drops that are advised, including polio. Even so, we take care
that they do not miss receiving polio drops regularly during every polio
immunization round."
The Indian cricketers' outcome in the World Cup is as yet unknown. But their
public relations campaign is a fantastic success. The polio vaccination
campaign kicked off on February 9 to coincide with the opening ceremonies in
Cape Town, with volunteers going door to door dripping the vaccine into the
mouths of babies and children up to the age of five. They're also manning
volunteer booths at school and public places. And as luck would have it, they
didn't even need to miss out on the opening match. Due to the time difference,
the match only started in India as the booths were closing.
The logistics and statistics are staggering. To succeed, the teams will have
to sweep through a country the size of Western Europe in six days. More than a
million volunteer teams are out in the field, hoping to reach their target of
165 million children by the weekend. 30,000 children were vaccinated on the day
of the opening match.
The largest-ever immunization campaign is required because India has the
biggest polio epidemic in recent history. 85% of new "wild" polio
cases come
from India, followed by Pakistan and Nigeria. The country had 1323 cases of
polio last year, which is a significant setback after only 483 cases were
reported worldwide in 2001. It only takes a few children who miss their
immunization for the disease to spread. In fact, UNICEF estimates that for
every infected child, a million children in the region need to be vaccinated
as a precaution.
As a result, the World Health Organisation is going to miss its goal of a
world free of polio in the year 2005, because they can't certify that the
virus is gone without three polio-free years.
But while the cricket campaign is working, the challenge is to keep the
level of public interest at World Cup levels.
"Because the goal is eradication, we have to repeat the process,"
says
UNICEF's Savita Varde-Naqvi. "There are 250,000 babies born every month in
Uttar Pradesh alone who will need the vaccine. And many children don't yet have
the full dose."
But she remains hopeful that her team will return - after reaching the Super
Six, she notes - and continue to promote the fight against polio. In fact,
she's already looking beyond the World Cup to India's next away game in
Bangladesh, and tying polio drops to that particular pitch.
"I have heard the polio campaign has had a bit of a setback because of
the
superstition that polio vaccine causes infertility," says strike bowler
Zaheer Khan. "I am fortunate that my parents did not subscribe to such
misconceptions and gave me my polio drops like everyone's parents should -
else you may never have seen me in a cricket field, much less in the
national team."
For more information on the polio eradication campaign, log on to www.who.int
Editorial: The link between developmental strategies in India and
Africa is strong. Many of the problems we face are also faced by those in India.
Polio is a problem in both India and parts of Africa, such as Nigeria. Although
cricket may not have the same continental appeal in Africa as it does on the
Indian sub-continent, the model of using sport to encourage immunization is
something we can learn from and use in various African contexts.
|
