I didn't know that when I was fast asleep last night, Bangalore was buzz with the polio rumour. The talk was that something drastically was wrong with the oral polio drops and many children had died. Worried parents then rushed with their kids to the nearest hospital even if the kids didn't have any symptoms.
Apparently at midnight there was massive traffic jams on the main roads as thousands of parents crowded the hospitals. TV9 channel is being blamed by everyone for this. Whether they really telecast anything like that or it is just a rumour I don't know. Papers are also saying that in Chennai it was worse. There Jaya TV is being blamed. Why is media doing like this...
How can a city like Bangalore can fall prey to rumours like this. This not the first time. Only a couple of days back, there was a rumour that city's water supply was poisoned. I didn't hear that, but some of my friends got sms, and I also saw that in the paper. But mercifully that didn't create any panic.
Some of my friends who saw the crowd last night, said most of the parents belonged to the Muslim community. I have heard of conspiracy theories. One of them is that the whole oral vaccination programme is a western plan to limit the population of Muslims. It seems the vaccine will create impotency. For laypersons like us, it is very difficult to know the truth.
Forget this, many of the allopathic medicines that we take contain many chemical that could have side-effects. But then we don't go and send sms and create panic. Why create panic like this. Poor children they would have been woken up in the night. And imagine the parents so worried they might have been. Sad.
I also feel for the Muslim community. It's so sad that the religion is passing through such a bad phase. Rightly or wrongly, people of that community seem to land in trouble. Not a pleasant thing. May be someday it will all pass.
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