Experience, they say, is the best teacher. But according to one of my lecturers, he said, “you don’t always have to learn the hard way when you can always learn from other people’s experiences”. That’s the situation of how I learnt about the importance of vaccination.
Many years ago, in my hometown, there was a call for children vaccination. There were actual government workers who would come visiting house to house looking for children between a certain age, boys and girls just to vaccinate them. They would go as far as going into schools to find those children. In fact, anytime we saw those people, we already knew their mission. However, there was a problem.
Some parents wouldn’t let their children get vaccinated because “there was Iya Shukura who lost her only child immediately after the child collected the vaccination”. So, quite a lot of mothers hid their children from being vaccinated.
At some points, the government workers would go to schools thinking they would have access to these children in the schools, but unfortunately, these parents would’ve warned their children, their class teachers, and the headmaster/headmistress to never allow those people near their children. So, every method they knew to block their children from getting vaccinated was promptly used.
Now, it gets sad.
About two months later, we started seeing children paralysed. At first, it was not common. So, it was first, ascribed to the kids being overworked. Actually, lots of us only did one work then, farming. We would carry heavy loads on our head wrapping our tiny arms around it and walked home exhausted. So, it was possible that those little kids got paralyzed due to heavy loads.
Then, again, when many houses started experiencing paralyzed children, they knew there was a problem, but with their “family”. It was a problem from their late great grandfather who never liked their grandfather’s wife, so, he afflicted them with paralysis. However, does it mean all those households affected had the same story? Nobody remembered to ask that question.
They did sacrifices, restricted women from stepping out because of some masquerades that would do the sacrifice, did a lot of other things, but more children kept getting paralyzed. They consulted the gods, did multiple deliverance sessions to liberate them from the water world, but the paralysis kept getting worse, and extending to other houses.
Finally, they considered going to the hospital where they realized that it was Polio Myelitis that affected those children. They asked for the solution, but they were told that it was better if they had prevented it by letting their children take the vaccines when those mobile nurses came to them, but unfortunately, there was nothing they could do.
That’s the outcome of the conspiracy theory on vaccination on my town people. They had thought that Shukura that died was as a result of the vaccine she got, however, only if they could do autopsy then would they have confirmed the real cause of death. Meanwhile, the injection she took wasn’t the one been given around to other kids. But they wouldn’t even had listened to anyone because they believe what they believe.
Vaccinations, even they say it is for “population reduction” or whatnot, it has many importance that cannot be ignored. Even animals get vaccinated against New Castle disease, Gumboro, and Marek’s diseases, so why will humans not be willing to take the vaccines as long as they are certified healthy for humans and are not expired?
Images are mine.