Health Under Fire
By Jawad Yousafzai
The Taliban is threatening Anti-polio drive in the tribal district of Pakistan. The district administration suspended all the Anti-polio drive due to fear of TTP attacks. The vaccination campaign was started in December, to reach all children across Pakistan and former FATA. The outbreak has been a blow to the Islamic nation’s efforts to eradicate the disease, which can cause severe paralysis in children.
In Pakistan, the virus successfully contained to a few districts in the south of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The rest of Pakistan clear while the southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the last front. This year, 20 children have been paralyzed by polio in the country, in which all of them belong to the southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. There are Seventeen affected children are from North Waziristan, two are from Lakki Marwat and one from South Waziristan.
Pakistan is one of two countries (including Afghanistan) where wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) transmission has never been interrupted. There are WPV1 cases in Pakistan decreased from 147 in 2019 and 84 in 2020 to a single case in 2021 but increased to 14 cases in 2022 as of July 31. Since 2012, as many as 70 polio workers have been killed, most of them in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The government considers polio eradication a top priority and committed to wiping every trace of it from our soil. But, in the latest statement, TTP threatening polio workers and not allowing them to protect children from the paralyzing poliovirus. Pakistan’s anti-polio campaigns are regularly marked by violence as Islamic militants often target polio teams and police protecting them. They are falsely claiming that the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Last year, an Islamic Advisory Group (IAG) reiterated its commitment to continue supporting the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. They have echoed its trust in the safety and effectiveness of all routine childhood vaccinations as a lifesaving tool that aligns with Islamic shariah. Earlier, an International Ulama Conference on Polio Eradication in Kabul also declared their support for accelerating polio eradication in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They have called on all parents to vaccinate their children under the age of 5 during all polio vaccination campaigns.
Talking about the attacks on Polio workers, the Ulama also strictly condemn all the attacks and aggression toward vaccinators and healthcare workers across Pakistan. The scholars also raised their concern over false information spreading about the polio vaccine, causing some caregivers to refuse immunization for their children.
Tahreek Taliban in Pakistan is failed on all means across Pakistan. They are now trying another failed attempt to attack soft target to spread threat and fear across Pakistan. The group is not sincere either with Pakistan nor with the Pashtuns in the tribal belt of Pakistan. They are attacking health workers by committing a war crime. They are threatening health workers inevitable consequence of war, not knowing that they are, in fact, in violation of the rules of war. The violence against health care is unacceptable, in peace as well as in war times, and can be prevented.
