Polio, public health, and the new pathologies of militancy in Pakistan

Abstract

Since 2005, Pakistan has witnessed a net increase in polio, reaching a 15-year crest in 2014 when 306 cases were reported. Pakistan, along with Afghanistan, is one the remaining two polio-endemic countries. The numbers of cases reported in Pakistan in 2014 were far in excess of Afghanistan (28) and Nigeria (6). This paper focuses on the endemic militancy plaguing the country that has recently created grave obstacles for countrywide polio eradication. We argue that the relationship between polio and militancy in Pakistan has had two facets. First, polio vaccination efforts have become a casualty of militancy: over the last decade, polio vaccination was periodically banned in militant strongholds, large cohorts of children remained unvaccinated in remote frontier regions as vaccinators were unable to reach them, and anti-vaccination discourses in many parts of the country deterred others from vaccinating their children. The second relationship between the presence of polio in Pakistan and militancy is one where state-led polio vaccination efforts became a target of militancy. This was through the deliberate killing of polio workers; since July 2012, 71 contractual government employees tasked with administering polio vaccines have been killed, posing impediments to vaccine coverage. This paper concludes that in addition to implementing policies to improve vaccination coverage, endemic militancy must be addressed before polio can be eradicated.

Keywords:

• Polio
• Pakistan
• militancy
• public health
• polio workers

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Erratum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.