Bill Gates’ idea of live monitoring creates ripples

PESHAWAR: The latest proposal by Bill Gates, philanthropist and chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), to introduce live monitoring system for polio workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has created ripples in circles of the provincial health department with some saying that the idea is likely to be rejected by the provincial government.
Sources working for the provincial health ministry and the polio eradication initiative have termed even thinking about the idea as “suicidal” and expressed serious reservations over the initiative. Officers believe that the polio eradication drive in the province had already become controversial due to the alleged involvement of the CIA which sponsored a fake vaccination campaign through Dr Shakeel Afridi in Abbottabad. They felt any association with another American organisation would be detrimental for the polio drive.
“Only because of the dirty role of Dr Shakeel Afridi, followed by the poor communication strategies of international donors, the PTI-led provincial government had to rebrand the whole drive with “Sehat Ka Insaf” and “Sehat Ka Ittehad” campaign,” said an official of the provincial health department while wishing not to be named as he was not authorised to the talk to the media.
He claimed that the “Sehat Ka Ittehad” campaign had already started to show results as during the current year the country had reported fewer polio cases compared to last year.“One fails to understand why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is so much interested in introducing the satellite monitoring system in the militancy-plagued Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when the “Sehat Ka Ittehad” campaign is working wonders for us,” the official argued.
He was of the view that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation were trying to establish a parallel health setup in the province. He added that the interventions were being carefully monitored by the relevant quarters.
“For the last eight months, health workers in KP have not received their salaries and this is due to a system introduced through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UAE government. There are major delays in payments to the polio workers and this is damaging the reputation of the whole programme,” he said.
He opined that the unnecessary involvement of foreign organisations and their dictation in polio eradication programme had already caused heavy damage to this noble cause.Efforts to approach Dr Imtiaz Shah, who heads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s polio eradication project in KP remained futile as he was stated to be busy in a meeting.This correspondent also sent a text message to his cell-phone and sought his comments about the proposed monitoring system, but Dr Imtiaz Shah didn’t respond.