Letters To The Editor


“If we don’t watch what we’re doing, we can make great troubles for ourselves.” 

– Carl Sagan



The return of cricket in Pakistan

The history of cricket in Pakistan predates the very creation of the country in 1947. The first ever international cricket match was is now Karachi, was on November 22, 1935 between Sindhi and Australian cricket teams. Unfortunately, Pakistan did not host any international cricket match since the terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009 in Lahore. But it has finally managed to lift this curse and international cricket players are becoming comfortable with the security conditions in Pakistan. PCB, the governing body of cricket in Pakistan, is making all-out efforts to bring international cricket back in Pakistan. Their efforts to host the T20I series against Sri Lanka have highly impressed Warren Deutrom, the chief executive of Cricket Ireland. After touring Pakistan to observe the arrangements put in place for the security of the players and for the series, he was hopeful of a tour of the Ireland cricket team in the not too distant future. Pakistanis are highly enthusiastic on the return of cricket and our secluded stadiums can finally be bustled with the energetic Pakistani crowd.

Maria Basheer,
Karachi

Religious opposition to polio vaccine

Religious opposition by Muslim fundamentalists is a major factor in the failure of immunisation programs against polio in Pakistan. This religious conflict in the tribal areas of Pakistan is one of the biggest hindrances to effective polio vaccination. The local Taliban have issued fatwas denouncing vaccination as an American ploy to sterilise Muslim populations. Another common superstition spread by extremists is that vaccination is an attempt to avert the will of Allah. Polio is a contagious viral illness that in its most severe form causes nerve injury leading to paralysis, difficulty breathing and sometimes death. The number of polio cases in Pakistan is increasing rapidly. Islam is a progressive religion, and religious leaders should be asked to support polio eradication programs. The Council of Islamic Ideology has finally abolished all fatwas against the polio vaccine, validating it as a permissible way of curing polio.

Jamila Ahmed,
Islamabad

Parental pressure on students

With an increasing importance being given to the grades and relative performance of students in academics, it doesn’t come as a surprise that it comes with a lot more pressure for students to deal with. Pakistan’s education system puts an unnatural amount of emphasis on memorising answers than actually educating the students. Somewhere in the process of memorising and the inability to perform in such a system, students generally develop a mindset of not being good enough, which can prove to be very harmful. Recently, a boy committed suicide for getting ‘poor' grades in exams, and left a suicide note for his parents asking for their forgiveness. The boy's lifeless body was found floating in a river and was retrieved by the rescue team. What would our Pakistani parents rather have their children become? Healthy, positive and confident individuals, or depressed ones who end up taking their life?

Reena Hassan,
Lahore

Acute shortage of anti-rabies vaccines in the country

Poor planning and price centric approach has started causing shortage of vaccines, anti-rabies being the recent case. Since most vaccines are imported in finished form, any supply disruptions can impact its availability to the patients. Most of these vaccines are biological and have specialised nature of manufacturing and there are few manufacturers around the world that cater to the global demand for the same. Manufacturers have put Pakistan on low priority due to irrational pricing policy. This shortage have lead to a serious health crisis in Pakistan and many patients especially children are terribly suffering. Recently, a seven-year-old boy from Shikarpur ended up at the Indus Hospital in a state of gasping. The cause, his father learnt, was a dog bite on the child’s arm. The boy was taken to all the big hospitals but all of them had the same issue, the dearth of anti-rabies vaccine. The vaccine is not available in the country. The government needs to encourage local manufacturers to produce these vaccines so that the country can at least meet the demand to avoid health crisis.

Firdous Khan,
Sukhur



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