ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday tasked authorities to ensure the provision of polio vaccines in certain areas of Pakistan where security challenges exist, a statement from his office said, as Islamabad grapples to contain the spread of the infectious disease.
Pakistan’s restive northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, which borders Afghanistan, has been the scene of several attacks on police, security forces and anti-polio vaccination teams in recent months.
Polio has been eliminated in developed nations but persists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a highly infectious disease that invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis. While polio mainly affects children under five years of age, anyone who is unvaccinated can contract the disease at any age.
“Provision of polio vaccines for children should be ensured in areas where security challenges exist,” Sharif said while chairing a meeting on Pakistan’s ongoing efforts to eliminate polio.
The prime minister acknowledged that Pakistan had made significant headway in polio eradication, crediting frontline polio volunteers, the government and cooperation by national and international partners for it.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said Sharif was told that nine polio cases were reported throughout the country in 2024. He was also told that countrywide polio vaccination drives would be launched in September, October and December this year.
The premier was informed that data of children who had been vaccinated against polio has been digitized to ensure their vaccination through digital tracking.
Polio vaccination efforts in Pakistan have been hampered by the belief among many Pakistanis, particularly those residing in the conservative tribal areas, that the medicine is a Western campaign aimed at sterilizing the country’s population or a cover for Western spies.
In 2012, the local Taliban had ordered a ban on immunization against polio in some tribal districts. At least 11 policemen have been killed this year while on security duty during vaccination campaigns that are frequently targeted by militants. Dozens of polio workers have also lost their lives over the decades.
The 2011 US special forces raid inside Pakistan that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, also increased masses’ fears about polio vaccination. A Pakistani doctor was accused of using a fake vaccination campaign to collect DNA samples that the CIA was believed to have been using to verify bin Laden’s identity. The doctor remains jailed in Pakistan.
