Eradicating Polio: How One Man Changed His View on Vaccines

"Unfortunately, when a parent questions the value of vaccines, he puts his entire community at risk. But as I learned in India in 2008, this shared risk can sometimes be part of the solution."

In this reflective piece about correcting parents' misconceptions about vaccines, medical epidemiologist Ananda Bandyopadhyay describes an experience with polio vaccination that he feels changed the attitudes of an entire community: Kultali, an area on the fringes of the reserve forests of Sundarbans, in the Indian State of West Bengal. In his work at that time (2008) with the World Health Organization (WHO), Bandyopadhyay was called to Kultali to help deal with a case of polio detected in an 18-month-old boy, whose grandfather had never allowed him (or any family member) to be vaccinated due to the belief that vaccines have harmful health effects. As Bandyopadhyay and his team learned, this kind of thinking was pervasive in the community.

Their strategy was to work with the local health department over a period of several weeks to build the community's confidence in vaccines and other basic health programmes. They gathered local physicians, non-profit organisation representatives, and religious and political leaders to reinforce the importance of protecting the children with vaccines. "Ultimately, the vulnerability of their own children - many of whom were the same age as the affected child and lived in the same neighborhood - to the virus, made for the most convincing argument." Soon after, the local mosque began to make regular pro-vaccination announcements during prayers.

Having witnessed the collective stand of his community and neighbours, the grandfather donned a vaccine carrier and walked around cautioning others with his own story: "Don't allow polio to paralyze your child. It's too late for my family. But you want to see your little ones running around, don't you?" In this piece is a photograph of the grandfather vaccinating the child of a "resistant" family in his neighbourhood. Kultali never saw a second case of polio, and India has been "polio-free" since 2011.