'PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Suspected militants opened fire on a police officer guarding a team of polio workers in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing the officer and a passerby before fleeing, police said'
Extracts below and a comment from me. Full text: https://apnews.com/article/pakistan-militants-killed-police-officer-poli...
'Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
'More than 200 polio workers and police assigned to protect them have been killed in Pakistan since the 1990s, according to health and security officials.'
COMMENTS (NPW): These murders of polio vaccine workers and those who provide security for them continue unabated. They represent the most shocking and tragic example of the consequences of health misinformation.
One approach to address the issue is UNICEF's Digital Community Engagement (DCE) initiative. 'Based on the Vaccine Misinformation Management Guide, the DCE was launched as a first-of-its kind misinformation management model in 2021 by UNICEF and The Public Good Projects. The DCE is made up of a central hub that tracks polio misinformation online, develops accurate messaging, and supports digital volunteers and UNICEF country offices. The hub is driven by a global team of experts spread across public health, social behaviour change, online social listening, advertising, content design and influencer marketing.' https://polioeradication.org/news/fighting-polio-vaccine-misinformation/
Fighting polio vaccine misinformation. Engaging digital communities to build trust in vaccines and eradicate polio. https://www.unicef.org/stories/fighting-polio-vaccine-misinformation
We heard recently from Fatima Anwar (health advocate, Pakistan) https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/first-ever-hpv-vaccination-campaign-pak... She emphasises the importance of child health education and I would like to flag the work of Clare Hanbury and Children for Health in this area. For example: https://www.childrenforhealth.org/articles/work-with-children-to-develop...
These digital approaches and child health approaches are important but insufficient. What is needed is a coordinated overall strategy, informed by global social and behaviour change experts (and others) and on the cumulative evidence of what works and what doesn't (have any systematic reviews been done on this topic?). A quick google search does not identify such a strategy or reviews.
Would Fatima, Clare or others like to comment further? Do we have anyone on HIFA/CHIFA with experience of working on polio vaccine information?
Best wishes, Neil
Join HIFA: www.hifa.org/joinhifa
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org