Pakistan has initiated its second nationwide polio vaccination campaign of the year, aiming to immunize 45 million children over the course of a week. This effort comes as Pakistan, alongside neighboring Afghanistan, remains one of the last two countries where the potentially deadly and paralyzing virus has not been eradicated.
Since January, Pakistan has reported only six polio cases. This marks a significant decrease from the previous year, when 74 cases were recorded. In contrast, 2021 saw just one reported case of polio in the South Asian nation. In light of these figures, Pakistan’s Health Minister, Mustafa Kamal, has urged parents to cooperate with medical staff conducting door-to-door vaccinations to ensure widespread immunization of children.
Health workers in the region frequently face violence from militants who falsely claim that vaccination campaigns are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize Muslim children. Since the 1990s, more than 200 polio workers and the police officers assigned to protect them have been killed in such attacks.
