KARACHI: As only one meeting of the Religious Support Persons (RSPs) was held in Baldia Town during Ramazan for the planned door-to-door polio campaign, the ulema are looking forward to an “intense training session” after the Eid holidays.

The training session will be followed by the visit of a four-member team of Unicef and WHO members to Karachi from Islamabad on July 12 with an aim to evaluate progress of the RSPs programme, according to polio workers.

The programme, backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the World Health Organisation (WHO), was launched in March 2015 to contain the growing number of polio vaccine refusals from certain areas. The localities with most number of refusal cases in Karachi were from West district’s Mohammad Khan Colony adjacent to Northern Bypass, Gulshan-i-Ghazi, Abidabad and Tori Bangash surrounding Ittehad Town.

Since the refusal cases were over 700 and most parents refusing to inoculate their children cited some “religious ruling” as their reason, clerics in Karachi-West district were called in under the leadership of Maulana Umar Sadiq of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazal) who is also the Provincial Support Person (PSP) of the programme.

The junior clerics are paid between Rs8,000 and Rs10,000, whereas senior clerics are paid between Rs24,000 and Rs100,000 by the Gates Foundation to spread the awareness.

Speaking to Dawn, a polio worker from Ittehad Town, Mohammad Wahid, said the meetings supposed to be held in Ramazan were in light of the four-day polio campaign which was scheduled to begin on July 18. “The RSPs need to be aware before the beginning of the campaigns as there are going to be refusals during that time as well. Training sessions to apprise RSPs about the challenges ahead was part of it,” said Mr Wahid. He added that the month of Ramazan “was a busy one for the clerics due to which only one meeting could be held. But we’ll have proper training sessions after Eid.”

At present, there are 17 RSPs in Baldia Town out of which four are in Ittehad Town.

In others areas, specifically Orangi Town, Gulshan-i-Buner and Landhi, clerics are also being convinced to become part of the programme, said Mr Wahid, adding that the current focus was to cover as many people as possible.

When Maulana Umar Sadiq was asked about the delay in the meetings, he said it was due to the extensive schedule of clerics during Ramazan. “We are convinced that the people will listen to us,” he said though they were aware of the challenges ahead. “From the lists handed over to us by polio workers, it seems that the areas of Mohammad Khan Colony, Tori Bangash and Gulshan-i-Ghazi are challenging for polio workers. We can convince them from the Islamic perspective which is that saving one person’s life equals to saving humanity,” he added.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2016