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Pakistan school faces closure over refusing to allow polio workers

A health official with the district administration, said the school administration had refused to allow the polio vaccination workers to enter their premise.

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A girl receives polio vaccine drops at the door step of her family home in Karachi, Pakistan, February 15, 2016.
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A private school in this Pakistan city is facing legal action and closure after its administration refused to allow polio vaccine officials to enter its premises and vaccinate children on Thursday.

The anti-polio vaccine team had gone to the school in the Ayesha Manzil area is part of the three-day nationwide immunisation drive that started on Monday.

Muhammad Chandio, a health official with the district administration, said the school administration had refused to allow the polio vaccination workers to enter their premises, citing parents' refusals. "The administration of the school said in writing (that) parents had refused beforehand to allow polio vaccine to be administrated to their children in the school," he said.

He said the district administration was still trying to convince the school administration but if it did not yield, it could face legal action and the school could also be sealed. "Legal action can be taken against the school for obstruction of official duties under section 186 of the penal code," Chandio added.

The government has made the refusal to allow immunisation against polio a criminal offence since last year when nearly 4,000 people in Quetta, Pishin and Killa Abdullah districts in Baluchistan province refused to allow their children to be vaccinated.

The World Bank has given $180 million to Pakistan for routine immunisation of children in the country and the government has started a three-year emergency plan for polio eradication in the country.

Polio workers have been provided unprecedented security this time as they have come under attack from militants in the past in areas including Karachi and in some cases, parents have also turned violent after refusing to allow administration of the vaccine drops.

Polio workers have been targeted in the country by Islamist groups including the Taliban militants which claim that the polio immunisation drive is a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims. Just one case of polio has been reported in Karachi so far in 2016.

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