Polio continues

Even though the country has just begun a new year, it remains beset by some very old problems. None is older than the polio problem, with Pakistan and Afghanistan still the only two countries in the world yet to put the virus behind them. The previous year saw the country’s polio tally spike up to 68 as yet another case was recorded in the D I Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the last Monday (December 30) of 2024. This is the highest annual polio total recorded since 2020, when 84 cases of the wild poliovirus were recorded in the country. While Balochistan and KP were the worst-hit provinces, recording 27 and 20 cases respectively, Sindh was not far behind with 19 cases last year. The latest case was recorded on the same day an anti-polio vaccination drive commenced in Balochistan. The country saw many such drives in 2024. And yet, the polio tally still went up. As 2025 begins, Pakistan needs to look at what must be changed on the polio front in order to finally eradicate the disease.

The most striking aspect of the polio problem remains the refusal of many parents to do what is best for their children and have them vaccinated. This remains the case despite government authorities taking measures to encourage as many people as possible to get their children vaccinated. The Peshawar district administration, for example, issued a directive making polio vaccination certificates mandatory for obtaining official documents, including birth, marriage, divorce, and death certificates last month. At the federal or national level, advertisements reminding people of the importance of polio vaccinations and seeking to undo the damage caused by anti-vaccine propaganda have become a regular feature on our TV screens. And yet, judging by the polio numbers, many remain unconvinced. Some are even violently opposed to the idea of their children getting a polio vaccine. Sindh alone recorded over 43,000 cases of vaccine refusal in October last year. This refusal rate has to be lowered in 2025, which means doing more to encourage parents to vaccinate their children.

But vaccine hesitancy and refusal are not the only ingredients in the country’s polio mess. The gaps in our healthcare networks have led to many children simply falling through the cracks. According to a report by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), over four million planned vaccinations were missed during immunisation campaigns across the country in 2024. It must also be noted that the provinces with the most tenuous security situation in the outgoing year, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also lead the country in polio cases. This only underscores the urgency with which the security situation has to be improved. It also does not help that the very people relied on to deliver us from the clutches of this virus: the polio workers, on top of being targets of violence, are often not even paid on time. This is a shameful way to treat those on the front lines of arguably the country’s most important battle. If the government cannot protect polio workers all the time, this year, it should at least try to make sure that they are paid on time. Overall, the country’s success against polio in 2025 will be largely determined by how well it can address the problems that emerged last year. Failure to do so will only ensure that more children suffer and die needlessly.