Man booked for vaccine refusal

A case was registered against a man as the Rawalpindi district management on Saturday initiated legal proceedings against families denying anti-typhoid injections to their children during the ongoing campaign against the bacterial infection. On the direction of deputy commissioner Anwarul Haq, the Civil Defence Department lodged the case against Qari Asad Mehmood of Jamia Masjid Makki, located on Range Road. An official said Mehmood had been booked for refusing the child vaccination despite a team had made multiple efforts to convince him. The official said the Cantt assistant commissioner and the city assistant commissioner presented the names and address of 18 families which had refused anti-typhoid jabs after which three teams of the civil defence department were dispatched to visit them. Subsequently, the teams administered anti-typhoid injections to 23 children living with 11 of those families, the official said, adding that the rest of the seven families were not found at home. District officer Talib Hussain told The Express Tribune that the Civil Defence Department was authorised to register cases against families refusing vaccination in accordance with the rules. As per the rules, the head of a family refusing vaccine can be jailed for six months, ordered to hefty penalty and may be liable to both the punishments. The district officer maintained that cases would be lodged against all families refusing the anti-typhoid injection. Last month, the Rawalpindi Health Department had organised a walk to create awareness for the anti-typhoid vaccination campaign that started on February 1. Teachers, education officers, health officials, and Chairman District Peace Committee (DPC) Allama Izhar Shah Bukhari had participated in the walk. According to the health officials, 123 union councils of Rawalpindi district have been selected for this campaign in which 1.876 million children are being vaccinated. As many as 1,101 EPI teams are participating in the drive, while 225 supervisory union councils have been formed to oversee the campaign. Published in The Express Tribune, February 7th, 2021.

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