Last week, Pakistan’s polio tally for 2025 went up to 30. The latest case was recorded in district Torghar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where over half (19) of this year’s polio cases have come from. While the tally for this year is still much lower than the 74 cases recorded last year, it is five times higher than the 2023 total and a third higher than the 2022 total. As such, the country’s polio ordeal is far from over and those on the frontlines of vaccinating the nation’s children against this terrible disease continue to face the same challenges. Suspicion, myths, misinformation, stigma and targeted violent attacks continue to put the lives of those trying to save lives in danger. At least two security personnel escorting/guarding polio vaccination teams have been shot dead this month, one in KP and the other in Balochistan. The cross-border terror and security issues do not seem to have made the task of vaccinating Pakistan’s children any easier. The ignominy of failing to protect 30 children from a disease that the rest of the world, barring Afghanistan, has freed itself from is only heightened by the fact that this case was recorded a mere three days before World Polio Day on October 24.
Why do this country’s children continue to suffer needlessly? It is certainly not due to a lack of effort on the part of the vaccination teams and the people guarding them, who put their lives on the line every day so that other people’s children will be able to have a better one. These are the people who have brought about a seismic 99.6 percent reduction in polio cases since 1994, when the nation was recording an estimated 20,000 cases annually. The fourth national polio vaccination campaign of 2025 concluded earlier this month, reaching over 44 million children. These campaigns mobilise around 400,000 vaccinators, mostly women, across the country to go door-to-door saving children. But the disease persists. And now, these health workers might have to do their job with even fewer resources, with the budget of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a partnership including the World Health Organisation and the Gates Foundation, reportedly set to take a 30 per cent cut in 2026. The initiative is also expected to have a $1.7 billion funding gap up to 2029, with the shortfall being driven by a global pullback from foreign aid, led by the US, the self-proclaimed champion of good in the world.
One could argue that, in some ways, the country and the world is letting its frontline health workers and security personnel down. Are we really doing enough to counter misinformation and dangerous myths that sometimes cause polio workers to be attacked by the families of the very children they are trying to help? Are the online platforms on which such fake news spreads? Have we done enough to educate people? While we should criticise global aid cuts, do we invest enough in public health? What about security; did those who resettled terrorists and militants in the previous government think about the impact this would have on the nation’s struggle against polio? What do those across the border who now provide refuge to terrorists think about being the only other polio endemic nation? The fact is that we are very lucky to have the health workers that we do and this problem would be much worse without them. But they alone cannot eradicate polio as it is a problem that intersects with areas they have no influence over. This has to be a collective national but also regional and global effort.
Editorial Published in The NEWS on October 27, 2025.
