ISLAMABAD, OCT 21 – Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police who protect them has undermined years of efforts to make the country polio-free.
Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to just six years ago, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operations Center for Polio Eradication.
A new national campaign will begin on October 28 with the goal of vaccinating at least 32 million children. “The main purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the goal of making Pakistan a polio-free country,” he said.
Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on workers and police assigned to vaccinate. Militants falsely claim that the vaccination campaign is a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Most new polio cases were reported in southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Punjab province in the east.
The location worried authorities because previous cases came from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September abruptly halted a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are two countries where the spread of the potentially fatal and paralyzing disease has not been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan say the Taliban’s decision will have far-reaching effects beyond Afghanistan’s borders, as citizens from the two countries often travel between each other.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 18 cases of polio in Afghanistan this year, with all but two occurring in the south of the country. That’s an increase from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a door-to-door vaccination strategy last June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped reach the majority of targeted children, according to the WHO.
Health officials in Pakistan stated that they wanted both countries to conduct anti-polio campaigns simultaneously. – AP