Islamabad —
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan simultaneously launched new vaccination campaigns against polio on Monday. The virus remains endemic and paralyzing children as cases rise again in these two only countries in the world.
The World Health Organization has reported 64 polio cases this year, 41 from Pakistan and 23 from Afghanistan, an increase of six in each country in 2023.
Pakistani officials say 400,000 polio workers are participating in a week-long nationwide door-to-door campaign rolled out on Monday, reaching more than 45 million children under the age of five with the paralytic disease. The purpose is to administer vaccinations.
“This is Pakistan’s third national campaign this year and is launched in response to an alarming rise in polio cases across 71 districts,” said Prime Minister’s Polio Eradication Officer Ayesha Raza Farooq. .
More than half of the cases in 2024 will occur in the southwestern province of Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and is “facing intense transmission” of the poliovirus. Pakistan’s polio eradication program says 12 cases have been recorded this year in the southern province of Sindh, with the remaining cases reported in other parts of Pakistan, a country of more than 240 million people. .
FILE – A police officer, right, guards a health worker administering polio vaccine to a child near Peshawar, Pakistan, Sept. 9, 2024.
Mr. Anwarul Haq, Coordinator of the National Emergency Action Center for Polio Eradication, stressed that there is no cure for polio and urged them to work with health teams to protect children from this serious disease. called out to the person. “With the threat at an all-time high, we must act as a nation to keep our children safe through vaccination,” he said.
Local and WHO officials say the resurgence of the poliovirus in Pakistan is likely due to the spread of the polio virus in rural areas, stemming from false propaganda that these efforts are a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children. They blame it on the vaccine boycott.
Furthermore, anti-state armed groups in violence-hit areas bordering Afghanistan sometimes attack vaccine recipients and their police escorts on suspicion of being government spies. The violence killed dozens of polio workers and police personnel, including at least two vaccinators and seven police officers killed this year.
Afghanistan
Meanwhile, health authorities in Taliban-led Afghanistan on Monday announced the start of a three-day polio vaccination campaign, aiming to inoculate 6.2 million children under the age of five in 16 of the country’s 34 provinces. said. The target area is mainly located near the border with Pakistan.
FILE – An Afghan health worker, right, walks toward children standing in front of their homes during a polio vaccination campaign in the Old City of Herat, Afghanistan, on June 3, 2024.
The latest round of this year’s anti-polio campaign in Afghanistan began after a nearly two-month delay after Taliban authorities abruptly halted door-to-door vaccine distribution in the southern province of Kandahar without disclosing any reason. Instead, de facto Afghan authorities emphasized the need to vaccinate children from field to field and mosque to mosque.
In a report released last month, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s Independent Monitoring Committee attributed the Taliban’s actions to “the regime’s concerns about covert surveillance operations.” The report said Taliban officials explained that Taliban leaders were living in Kandahar and were concerned about the Taliban’s safety.
Considered the unofficial capital of Afghanistan under Taliban rule, Kandahar is home to the militant group’s reclusive leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, who rules the country by statute based on a strict interpretation of Islam. It is a place where you are.
Taliban chiefs have banned most Afghan women from public and private sector workplaces and barred girls from attending education beyond the sixth grade.
WHO officials say eradicating polio in Afghanistan requires comprehensively integrating large-scale migrants into vaccination programs. They also say it is important to establish a dedicated female polio-fighting public health workforce to reach out to groups who refuse to be vaccinated and address the multiple challenges facing polio eradication efforts in this poor country. states.
