ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – The Taliban Ministry of Public Health has announced the launch of a four-day polio vaccination campaign in several provinces across Afghanistan.
According to the ministry, the campaign started on Monday, December 29, with an anticipated coverage of approximately 7.5 million children under the age of 5 receiving protection against polio in this phase.
Afghanistan and its neighboring country, Pakistan, remain the last two countries grappling with endemic polio—an incurable and highly infectious disease capable of causing crippling paralysis and even fatalities in young children. The virus grows in the intestinal system and is shed through feces. The infection typically spreads in areas with poor water and sewage sanitation, and the disease is only preventable by safe and effective vaccines.
Polio has been virtually eradicated globally through decades of campaign and vaccination efforts. However, the challenges of insecurity, poverty, mass displacement, limited awareness about the disease, and suspicions of external interference have impeded large-scale vaccination campaigns, particularly in Afghanistan and certain regions of Pakistan in the past years.
Vaccination campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan also often face difficulties due to conspiracy theories in rural areas that falsely connect polio vaccination to infertility or fears that the vaccinators are being used for espionage.
Although there have been six registered cases of polio in Afghanistan in 2023, health experts had earlier warned about the potential for an outbreak due to the country’s fragile healthcare system and the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Children have particularly been affected by the expanding humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. According to the WHO, malnutrition is above the emergency level in more than two-thirds of the country.
In Afghanistan, polio has been spreading exclusively in two eastern provinces, Nangarhar and Kunar, which share a border with Pakistan. All polio cases detected last year were in Nangarhar province. Before the Taliban took control in August 2021, the group repeatedly banned door-to-door immunization campaigns in the southern and eastern parts of the country.
The number of polio confirmed cases in 2023 was higher than in 2022, during which the country recorded only two positive cases of polio—a historic low in the country’s efforts against the virus. In 2020, a total of 56 positive cases were reported countrywide, primarily attributed to the disruption of immunization programs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) remain the two major implementers of the door-to-door vaccination efforts in most parts of Afghanistan. According to UNICEF, 9.4 million children were vaccinated throughout the country last year, slightly below the target of 10 million.
After years of disrupting public health campaigns and amplifying vaccine skepticism, the Taliban now faces challenges of its own making. Even though the group has allowed a vaccination campaign since taking over, there is still violence against health workers in the country. The U.N. says that at least eight polio vaccinators were killed last year, and nine the year before.
In some cases, the Taliban authorities have also prohibited female health workers from delivering polio vaccines, citing the regime’s ban on women’s employment in the country.
