KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Local Taliban authorities in Herat province, western Afghanistan, reported that they have launched a three-day polio vaccination campaign in the region.
Gholam Nabi Hanafi, the deputy head of the Taliban’s Public Health Department in Herat, said the campaign began today, November 30, and is expected to vaccinate around 758,000 children under the age of five across the province.
He said that the campaign will be carried out in designated mosques only, urging the residents of Herat province to take their children to the mosques to receive the vaccine.
Polio vaccination campaigns were previously conducted house-to-house across Afghanistan. However, the Taliban have recently halted these campaigns and are now carrying out the vaccination drive mosque-to-mosque.
This comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 23 cases of polio in Afghanistan this year, the highest number in recent years.
Most of the polio cases this year have been reported in the southern and eastern provinces, particularly in Kandahar, Helmand, and Nangarhar. Last year, Afghanistan recorded six confirmed polio cases, all of which were in Nangarhar province, located along the border with Pakistan.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the last two countries still grappling with endemic polio, while the rest of the world has successfully eradicated the virus through effective vaccination campaigns and other protective measures.
Pakistan has reportedly recorded 56 polio cases so far this year, with the majority of cases reported in the Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
Vaccination efforts in both Afghanistan and Pakistan are often hindered by conspiracy theories in rural areas, where polio vaccinations are falsely linked to infertility or viewed with suspicion, with some fearing that vaccinators may be involved in espionage. These beliefs create significant barriers to reaching communities, complicating efforts to eradicate polio in the region.
The ruling regime in Afghanistan, which has historically hindered polio eradication efforts and targeted vaccinators in the southern parts of the country, faces significant challenges in combating the disease.
