Police strike disrupts polio vaccination drive in Pakistan

MORE THAN 100 Pakistan police who provide security for polio vaccination teams in restive border areas went on strike last Thursday (12) after a string of deadly militant attacks last week.

Police officers who are routinely deployed to protect polio workers going door-to-door come under attack by militants waging a war against security forces.

Hundreds of police and polio workers have been killed over the past decade.

“Police officers will not perform polio duties,” said a police official participating in the protest. “If necessary, army and border troops should be deployed alongside the police to protect polio teams so they can understand how difficult this task is,” the official said.

Another officer said negotiations had failed between the protesting police in Bannu district, in the northwestern border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and senior officials.

“Any constable who learns of the protest is leaving their polio duty to join the demonstration,” the second officer said.

At least two police officers and one polio worker were shot dead in separate attacks in rural districts near the border with Afghanistan since the launch of the latest vaccination drive last Monday (9), including one officer escorting a team last Thursday. Nine people were also wounded last Monday in a bomb attack on a polio vaccination team claimed by Daesh (the Islamic State group).

Most attacks are claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, different from the Afghan Taliban but with a similar ideology.

Pakistan has seen a surge in polio cases this year, recording 17 so far in 2024, compared with six in 2023.

It and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world where polio remains endemic despite an effective vaccine.

Health officials had aimed to vaccinate 30 million children in a week-long campaign. “Due to the police strike, around 5,000 children have missed their vaccinations and alternative arrangements are being made to cover them,” a government official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s capital said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

According to the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF), the number of polio cases in Pakistan has fallen dramatically from around 20,000 annually in the early 1990s.

However, pockets of Pakistan’s mountainous border regions remain resistant to inoculation as a result of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and some firebrand clerics declaring it un-Islamic.

Pakistan has witnessed a concerning surge in militant attacks since the Taliban government returned to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021, mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but also in southwestern Balochistan, which abuts Afghanistan and Iran.

Islamabad accuses Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil as they prepare to stage assaults on Pakistan, a charge the Taliban government denies.