As Indonesia prepares to vaccinate 6.4 million children against polio on Tuesday, health workers will be fighting more than the crippling disease _ they'll also be battling pockets of ignorance and hard-line beliefs. The re-emergence of polio for the first time in a decade has prompted the Indonesian government to work quickly to try to contain it. About 6,000 children have already been immunized in a handful of villages in West Java where 14 children have so far been left paralyzed since the outbreak began last month, according to AP. But there are stray families with children who have not swallowed the oral vaccination. They remain at risk of becoming paralyzed themselves or spreading the virus to others even if they stay healthy _ only about one in 200 kids infected ever develop symptoms. «They know nothing about the usefulness of the vaccine,» said Dr. Immanuel Tarigan, the main physician overseeing some of the affected remote villages about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Jakarta. «There are rumors that when kids get vaccinated, after that they get a fever.» --More 1202 Local Time 0902 GMT
