On the World Polio Day, October 24, 2013, awareness programmes and events were held to eliminate polio worldwide, including Pakistan. But one of the important aspects, which is neglected both by government as well as civil society, is what the future of polio vaccination in FATA after talks with the Taliban will be. In 2012 and 2013, dozens of polio cases were reported in the Taliban-controlled Waziristan in FATA, and some parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), which are very alarming because of the ban imposed by the Taliban on polio vaccination. Neither the PML-N federal government nor the PTI KP government seem to have any clear policy regarding talks with the Taliban, nor what the strategy will be if the Taliban, even after the talks, continue the ban on polio vaccination.
On the one hand, in recent days, the federal government received millions of aid in the form of Coalition Support Funds while on the other, two weeks ago the KP government arranged a donors conference. Most of the international organisations and western donors in Islamabad are used for taking money and aid in the name of the ongoing war against terror, but no future policy and a clear strategy about polio vaccination in KP and FATA were issued, which shows the level of the government’s seriousness to address this very important issue.
Because of the war against terror, Afghanistan and its bordering Pakistan, especially FATA, are facing militancy and instability, which affect all sectors, such as education and health, and especially the polio vaccination campaigns.
According to the UN’s World Health Organisation, some key facts of polio are given as:
Polio [poliomyelitis] mainly affects children under five years of age.
One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralysed, five to 10 percent die when their breathing muscles become immobilised.
In 2013, only three countries (Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan) remain polio-endemic.
As the above-mentioned facts show, polio still exists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, in addition to Nigeria, the main reason being the conflict, militancy and instability in these countries.
Polio workers in FATA on the Pak-Afghanistan border, the conflict zone of Pakistan, were receiving threats from the militant Taliban after 9/11, but these threats increased and converted into open attacks after the alleged involvement of Dr Shakil Afridi in spying for the CIA in capturing the al Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, in Abbottabad, where he was living for years. Dr Afridi — who previously worked for the Health Organisation in Elimination of Polio — presently, is in a Peshawar prison on spying charges.
In these attacks, polio workers, even females, were murdered, mostly in FATA, and even in other cities like Peshawar, Swabi, Charsadda, Mardan, Quetta and Karachi. Some foreign members of the WHO were attacked in Islamabad, which shows the countrywide threats and challenges the polio vaccination campaign faces inside Pakistan. Responsibility for the attacks on polio workers was accepted by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant Taliban group operating in Pakistan, especially inside FATA, where Waziristan is their unofficial headquarter. That is the reason why in just North Waziristan, 14 new polio cases were reported last year. Similar attacks were reported on the other side of the border by the Afghan Taliban but the intensity of attacks on polio workers inside Pakistan is even worse than Afghanistan.
Other reasons include propaganda by some elements that polio drops are used for infertility by the west, and that is why some parents rejected the polio vaccination campaign. There has been a large scale displacement of millions of tribal people in the form of Internally Displaced Persons, due to the ongoing militancy and military operations in FATA, and the Pak-Afghanistan conflict zone. The tribal population is sandwiched between the militant Taliban and the Pakistan military for a decade in the name of the war against terror. That is why, on the one hand, the tribal population is suffering, while on the other, threats and challenges are also increasing for the polio vaccination campaign.
The need of the hour is to take serious measures by all stakeholders to end the conflict by working for peace, and that, in turn, will help in the elimination of polio from Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The writer is an analyst and observer of geopolitical and regional issues. He can be reached at [email protected]