Hi Jennifer,

I have been living in a radicalized islamic community for three years in the North of Mali in order to investigate inter alia their attitudes towards forms of modern medication including vaccinations. There was, however, no direct opposition to immunization, rather a lack of understanding of a vaccination's purpose.

Our clinical study showed that 2% of children younger than 5 years (2 out of 111) have received a polio vaccine.  

See: Muench, A.K. Nomadic Women's Health Practice. Islamic Belief and Medical Care among Kel Alhafra Tuareg in Mali. Basel: Schwabe, 2012.

I am very interested in outcomes of your workshop - is there a working paper about it?

Thanks.

Best regards, Anna

Hi Anna

Thanks for this - there should be a written outcome from the conference, so I'll let you know once it's available.

Best wishes

Jenni

Hi Anna

I thought I'd give you an update - we span the workshop in July out to a conference we'll be holding on January 23 in London, for which there will be a written output. I'm assuming this isn't hugely useful for you in terms of attending, but the conference report will be open access, so I'll let you know when it's available - probably some time in July.

Hi Jenni,

thank you for your update. And yes, please let me know when the conference report will be available.

Best regards,

Anna

Hi Jennifer,

We have researched a different perspective: the polio representation in the media (1995-2009). In Spain we have a different approach to the anti-vaccine movement depending on the journal. "El País" creates a metaphor of the anti-vaccine movement as the fundamentalism danger. I think this point of view could be interesting for you.

Best wishes

Juan

Hi Juan

Thanks for this - the workshop is long over now, and I was specifically interested in Islamist opposition to polio vaccination and whether the narratives were theologically or politically driven but would be interested in seeing your work in any case. With anti-vaccination narratives in general, I'm interested in the extent to which public health and medical bodies are prepared to work with the vaccine skeptics on compromises (such as good basic infection control and social distancing within ultra-religious communities) rather than simply dismissing them as backward/ignorant, and also how the lack of willingness of official healthcare bodies to even acknowledge vaccine concerns pushes the vaccine-concerned towards anti-vacciination narratives as there is no-one else willing to discuss the (often genuine) concerns with them.

If you're looking at either of these points I'd be interested.