June 4, 2024
Muhammad Junaid
LAHORE:
Attacks on polio workers have drastically surged in 2024, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. According to data recorded by the Emergency Response Cell, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 51 casualties related to the programme were recorded in KP alone. Of these, 14 people, mostly policemen, were killed while 37 were injured. An overwhelming majority of casualties were policemen.
The latest incident occurred on June 4 in the Wargarey area of Lakki Marwat, where militants opened fire on a polio team, injuring a police officer assigned to protect the health workers. A day prior to this, gunmen killed a former local leader, Malik Ishaq, and his companion in the Dheri Mamandkhel area. Ishaq was affiliated with the polio eradication initiative and had attended a training for polio observers.
But KP is not the only region where polio workers face danger for their work.
In Balochistan’s Chaman area, recently two paramilitary personnel and two female polio workers were wounded when participants of the Chaman protest sit-in against new border restrictions attacked them.
The deputy commissioner alleged that the protest leaders attempted to steal weapons from security forces during the assault on the vaccination team. The protesters say they refuse to allow any government campaign in the area until their demands are met.
The attacks coincide with an ongoing five-day nationwide anti-polio drive, aiming to inoculate over 16.5 million children under five years of age.
In KP, in nine high-risk districts, around 26,000 police officers have been deployed to guard polio teams going door-to-door.
‘The worst form of terrorism’
Afrasiab Khattak, former Senator, human rights activist and leader of the National Democratic Movement (NDM), told Voicepk, that the targeted killing of polio workers is ‘the worst form of terrorism’.
“They [terrorists] attack polio workers and their security staff and peddle fake propaganda about vaccination as they want our future generations to suffer. This situation is really worrisome” he said. “There is a direct link between the resurgence of TTP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and such attacks.”
Khattak added that there was an urgent need for the state to review its Afghan policy and that it ‘must set its house in order’.
He also stressed the need for raising awareness among masses about polio vaccination.
Propaganda
Anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan are regularly disrupted by violence. Militants target vaccination teams and the police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming that the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Additionally, religious leaders in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region spread misinformation that the vaccine contains traces of pork and alcohol, which are forbidden in Islam.
Lady health supervisor based in Peshawar, Robina Shaheen told Voicepk that people in tribal areas are against all sort of vaccinations of their children not just polio. They consider it something ‘strange’.
Resistance to the polio immunisation drive intensified in Pakistan after the United States organized a fake vaccination drive to track Osama bin Laden, who was killed in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad in 2011.
Since then, the TTP has claimed responsibility for killing dozens of polio vaccination workers and security officials.
Pakistan’s battle against polio
Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only two countries yet to be declared free of the wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV-1).
According to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a country must demonstrate an absence of WPV-1 transmission for at least three consecutive years to be recognized as “free of polio.” Pakistan reported its fourth polio case this year; there were six cases in 2023, a significant decrease from the 20 cases reported in 2022.
The ongoing attacks on polio workers significantly hinder Pakistan’s efforts to eradicate polio, with experts advocating for foolproof security measures to protect workers and ensure the success of eradication efforts.