PESHAWAR: Ten people have been arrested in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for trying to derail an ongoing anti-polio drive with a concerted misinformation campaign, police said on Wednesday, as two policemen assigned to protect polio teams were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the last two days.
Along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, Pakistan is one of the only three countries where complete polio eradication has not yet been achieved, but case numbers are at the lowest level ever, with only eight cases reported in 2019. The country’s success follows an intense program based around vaccinating vulnerable children.
On Monday, the program was thrown into jeopardy as panic spread across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province due to reports that hundreds of schoolchildren had to be rushed to health facilities apparently after being administered polio vaccine drops. It emerged the following day that parents had acted on rumors spread over community and mosque loudspeakers, and reported by mainstream and social media and shared on WhatsApp.
In Mashokhel, where the rumor apparently originated, a local health unit was set on fire by rioters, while a terrified public overwhelmed streets and hospitals across the province.
“Police have enhanced patrolling in the city to ensure smooth flow of the campaign,” Muhammad Ilyas, a spokesman for Peshawar police, told Arab News. “More arrests are expected as police raids continue in different localities of the city.”
Ilyas said among the ten people arrested was Nazar Muhammad who first spread misinformation about the anti-polio drive on Monday and was seen in viral social media videos coaxing children to pretend to fall ill after being administered polio drops. In other videos that also went viral, he was seen claiming that many children had fainted after being vaccinated.
Last month, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s office urged the country’s telecoms regulator to take action against misinformation spread on social media discouraging vaccination against polio and other diseases.
Separately last month, Facebook Inc, which along with other social media companies has faced growing pressure over spurious content spread on its platform, announced it would remove user groups and pages that contained misinformation about vaccinations. Online video sharing site YouTube has also said it would take action to stop advertising revenue to channels promoting anti-vaccination content.
On Monday, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Minister Dr. Hisham Inamullah Khan told reporters that complaints of headaches, nausea and abdominal pain by children were “psychological and triggered by panic” caused by the misinformation campaign and rumors.
Babar bin Atta, the prime minister’s focal person on polio eradication, told Arab News the anti-polio drive was continuing throughout the province despite the misinformation campaign and the hunt was on to identify culprits behind Monday’s “nasty propaganda.”
“Not a single child at any hospital has been found to be affected [by the polio drops],” Atta said, adding that all of the children brought to hospitals were quickly discharged because they were in stable condition.
A nation-wide anti-polio campaign was kicked off in Pakistan on Monday, targeting 39 million children in all four provinces, including Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
“The panic was aimed at jeopardizing the polio eradication drive to put our children at risk but the perpetrators will be taken to task,” Atta said. “What they have done is a criminal act.”
Shehzad Kaukab, a spokesman for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police, said an assistant sub-Inspector Imran (last name not given) had been killed in the Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while police constable Zafar Khan was killed in the province’s Bunner area.
No group has accepted responsibility for the killings. Many extremists, including Taliban militants, have long opposed the polio campaign, saying it is used to sterilize Muslims.
Ten arrested for spreading misinformation, derailing polio campaign in Pakistan’s northwest
Ten arrested for spreading misinformation, derailing polio campaign in Pakistan’s northwest
- Two policemen assigned to protect vaccination teams shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
- Panic spread across the province on Monday due to false reports several schoolchildren had fainted after being administered polio drops
Pakistan secures $1.2 billion as IMF clears reviews, flags gains on stability and reforms
- IMF praises Pakistan’s policy implementation despite challenging global environment and climate-driven shocks
- The Executive Board urges faster energy, SOE and governance reforms for macroeconomic and fiscal sustainability
KARACHI: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved Pakistan’s second review under its Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and the first review of its Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), said a statement on Tuesday, unlocking about $1.2 billion in new financing while praising the country’s progress in stabilizing the economy despite recent floods.
The decision taken by the IMF Executive Board allows Islamabad to draw $1 billion under the EFF and $200 million under the RSF, bringing total disbursements under both arrangements to about $3.3 billion. The Fund said Pakistan’s policy implementation had improved financing conditions, strengthened reserves and preserved stability even as the country faced a challenging global environment and climate-driven shocks.
Under the 37-month EFF, approved last year in September, the IMF noted strong fiscal performance, including a primary surplus of 1.3 percent of GDP, a rebound in gross reserves to $14.5 billion by end-FY25 from $9.4 billion a year earlier and progress on rebuilding confidence. It noted a surge in inflation due to flood-related food price spikes but said it was expected to ease.
“Pakistan’s reform implementation under the EFF arrangement has helped preserve macroeconomic stability in the face of several recent shocks,” IMF Deputy Managing Director Nigel Clarke said. “Real GDP growth has accelerated, inflation expectations have remained anchored, and fiscal and external imbalances have continued to moderate.”
Clarke said Islamabad’s commitment to meeting its FY26 primary balance target while also addressing urgent post-flood relief signaled strong fiscal intent. He urged continued tax policy simplification and base broadening to build space for climate resilience, social protection and public investment.
The IMF official maintained a tight monetary stance should be continued to keep inflation within the State Bank Pakistan’s target range, while allowing exchange-rate flexibility and deepening the interbank market.
Additionally, he said financial regulation enforcement and capital market development were essential for a resilient financial sector.
The IMF also flagged energy sector reforms as “critical to safeguarding viability,” noting that timely tariff adjustments had helped curb circular debt but that Pakistan must now focus on reducing electricity production and distribution costs and addressing operational inefficiencies in both the power and gas sectors.
The statement also welcomed the publication of Pakistan’s Governance and Corruption Diagnostic report, a detailed IMF-supported assessment that maps out where government systems are vulnerable to inefficiency or misuse and recommends reforms to improve transparency, accountability and service delivery.
Further priorities include the privatization of state-owned enterprises and strengthening economic data quality.
Clarke said reducing Pakistan’s climate vulnerability was vital for long-term stability, referring to the RSF, a financing tool that provides long-term, low-cost loans to help countries address climate risks.
“The RSF arrangement is supporting efforts to strengthen natural disaster response and financing coordination, improve the use of scarce water resources, raise climate considerations in project selection and budgeting, and improve the information on climate-related risks in financing decisions,” he said.
Pakistan faced a prolonged economic crisis in recent years before it began implementing stringent IMF-recommended reforms, which have driven a gradual improvement in macroeconomic indicators over the past two years.
The country also remains one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations despite contributing less than one percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
It has endured a series of extreme weather events in recent years, most notably the 2022 super-floods that submerged one-third of the country, displaced millions and caused an estimated $30 billion in losses.
This year’s floods killed over 1,000 people and caused at least $2.9 billion in damage to agriculture and infrastructure, underscoring the scale of climate pressures facing the economy.
Economic experts told Arab News a day earlier that the Fund’s disbursements under the two loan programs would support the cash-strapped nation, which has relied heavily on financing from bilateral partners such as Saudi Arabia, China and the United Arab Emirates, as well as multilateral lenders.
“It obviously will help strengthen the external sector, the balance of payments,” said Samiullah Tariq, group head of research at Pakistan Kuwait Investment Company.
Another analyst, Shankar Talreja, head of research at Karachi-based Topline Securities, said the move was likely to send a positive signal to domestic and international investors about the government’s commitment to its reform agenda.
“This will help strengthen reserves and will eventually help a rating upgrade going forward,” he said.
