PESHAWAR, Nov 24: The United Nations Children`s Fund (Unicef) has planned to begin polio awareness programmes on radio in Pashto to address vaccination refusal cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and adjoining tribal areas, say the relevant officials.

Unicef in collaboration with the federal government has been carrying out the anti-polio activities in the country since 1994 but the high incidence of vaccination refusal, especially in Pakhtun population, has turned out to be a major obstacle to polio eradication.

According to the officials, the special radio programmes meant to persuade Pakhtuns to vaccinate their children against polio will go on air in January next year.

They said more than 90 per cent of the countrywide polio cases were reported in Pakhtun population due to some clerics` groundless propaganda that oral polio vaccine sterilises children.

The officials said Pakistan`s performance on polio front was worse than Nigeria and Afghanistan, the two other polio-endemic countries, due to the people`s refusal to vaccinate children against the crippling disease.

They said opinion leaders, including elders of targeted communities, would be invited to the radio programmes toissue pro-vaccination messages.

`In the programmes, the Pakhtun population in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas will be targeted as these areas have reported most countrywide polio cases,` an official said.

Until now this year, Pakistan has reported 63 polio cases, including 43 in Fata and nine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Also, two of the six cases reported in Punjab belonged to areas bordering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while two of the four cases from Sindh were also Pakhtuns.

In this light, the officials said, the Pashto programmes have been planned to scale up Pashto-speaking population`s awareness of vaccination against polio, one of the many vaccine preventable childhood ailments.

The officials felt the problem of vaccination refusal is deeply-rooted in Pakhtun culture.

It, according to them, snowballed into a major public health issue when (current Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan commander) Mullah Fazlullah began propaganda against oral polio vaccine in his native Swat district by the end of 2005.

The officials said during those days, the local population held Mullah Fazlullah in high esteem and therefore,his anti-vaccination campaign on an illegal FM radio station found many receptive ears.

According to them, Swat recorded 20 polio cases, the highest in the country in 2007 and Mullah Fazlullah`s radio campaign was to blame for it.

Fazlullah later joined TTP and became its chief in Swat. At that time, a full-scale campaign against polio got underway in Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

During the last countrywide polio campaign, which took place in September, a total of 65,000 vaccination refusal cases were recorded.

Of them, 35,000 were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 18,000 in Sindh, especially in areas populated by Pakhtuns.

The situation in Fata is extremely alarming with the UN agencies blaming it for surge in polio cases in the country.

Experts insisted the initiatives like Pashto radio programmes on polio vaccination had failed to bear fruit in the past.

They said TV channels and radio stations often ran anti-polio advertisements but by and large, the people in far-flung areas of Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa couldn`t benefit from them for being without TV and radio sets.