MUZAFFARABAD (Kashmir English): Polio workers determinedly face harsh conditions during this year’s Polio campaign, currently running in Azad Kashmir.
Health workers in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) are enduring freezing temperatures this week to administer polio vaccinations as Pakistan faces a surge in cases recorded nationwide last year.
Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan remain the only countries where polio is endemic, with vaccination teams and their security escorts frequently targeted by militants.
On Monday, the first day of the nationwide vaccination drive, a police officer guarding polio workers was shot dead in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Khyber (KPK) district after an inoculation team was ambushed in Bakarabad.
In AJK, health workers navigated snowy mountain paths in temperatures as low as -6°C to administer polio drops in remote areas. “This is a mountainous and difficult region but we still reach here for polio vaccinations despite three feet of snowfall,” said Manzoor Ahmad, who leads AJK’s polio campaign.
Mehnaz, a social worker who has been assisting vaccinators since 2018, emphasised the serious dangers that the severe weather poses. “We receive no monthly salary yet we come here to give polio drops to children despite facing glaciers and avalanches,” she stated. “We put our lives at risk and leave our children at home.”
With 73 polio cases reported in 2024, a sharp increase from just six the year before Pakistan’s problem has gotten considerably worse this year. Within a week, health workers in the town of Surgan, which is around 150 kilometres north of Muzaffarabad, the capital of AJK, hope to vaccinate 1,700 children.
“Our target is to administer polio drops to 750,000 children under five, with 4,000 teams going door to door,” Ahmad stated. He proudly noted that AJK has remained polio-free for the past 24 years.
PM launches 2025’s first anti-polio campaign
On Sunday, 2 January, Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif launched Pakistan’s first nationwide polio eradication campaign of 2025, personally administering drops to children under five.
The PM reiterated his government’s commitment to ending polio during his remarks at the inauguration ceremony. The nationwide immunisation campaign, he emphasised, is intended to protect millions of youngsters and secure their future. To guarantee nationwide coverage, the campaign, which is set for February 3rd to 9th, will reach outlying areas. He expressed confidence in the dedication of vaccination teams, urging them to work tirelessly to fulfil this critical national responsibility.
Security threats to Polio workers
Although polio can be easily prevented with a few drops of oral vaccine, efforts to eradicate the disease are often obstructed by misinformation, insecurity, and parental refusals. Some have wrongly claimed it contains forbidden substances like pork or alcohol, discouraging people from accepting the vaccine.
Extremists have increasingly targeted security personnel assigned to protect vaccinators as they conduct door-to-door campaigns.
In November, a bombing in Balochistan targeted police officers guarding vaccinators near a school, killing at least seven people, including five children.
On the first day of this year’s week-long polio vaccination campaign, militants killed a police officer guarding vaccinators in the northwest. Polio remains endemic in countries where extremist groups have for years targeted vaccination teams and their security personnel.
