LAHORE/PESHAWAR: For Kaleem Ullah Khan, a polio health worker in Pakistan’s northern city of Peshawar, the rise of new myths about the virus immunization drive have made his job harder. There are the usual suspects, like the prevalent misconception that the polio campaign is a foreign ploy to sterilize Muslim children. But with the latest surge in Pakistan’s polio rates, health workers like Khan fear greater resistance at work.
In a major setback to the global campaign to eradicate polio, Pakistan has reported 69 cases this year (till September), the highest in the world. In comparison, it reported only 12 in 2018, and seemed to be on the brink of wiping out the deadly virus- an incurable and highly contagious disease that leads to paralysis in young children. Pakistan, neighboring Afghanistan and Nigeria, are the only three countries in the world that have failed to eliminate the crippling disease.
“Nowadays, there is a new trend,” Khan told Arab News. “Parents use the high-profile (polio) drive as a bargaining chip. They ask for jobs and utilities in exchange and refuse to have their children administered drops till their demands are met.” Even turning to local elders, he said, was often unsuccessful.
“This one time, I kept going back to a woman’s house to convince her. Every time she said the drops gave her grandson a stomach ache. After a month, I gave up.”
In its review, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB), which oversees the global polio eradication effort, declared Pakistan’s polio program a ‘disaster.’
“It is now clear that there is something seriously wrong with the program,” it noted last October. “Some would say that the polio program is fooling itself into thinking that it has made any progress at all since 2017.”
Babar Bin Atta, who was appointed the Prime Minister’s focal person for polio eradication a few days before the Board’s scathing review, said the hysteria surrounding the campaign came primarily from a trust deficit.
“There is only one reason for the resurgence: mistrust,” Atta told Arab News. “Nearly 70 percent of the cases are coming from the district of Bannu in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.”
When Atta and his team visited the district to talk to health workers and reluctant parents, they were surprised to note that the number of refusals were 60 times higher than reported.
The people of Bannu had lost trust in the vaccination campaign as local administration used force and threatened to register police complaints against unwilling parents. Other parents, in cahoots with health workers under pressure not to report non-compliance, had acquired the special pens used to mark a vaccinated child’s finger.
“This led to data manipulation by the field staff, since their performance depended on the number of children they reached,” Atta said.
Aside from Bannu, in Pakistan, the most high-risk areas have remained its urban centers- Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar- which have continued to show transmission of the disease. Troublingly, this year, Pakistan saw a resurgence of the polio virus in the Punjab province, which was declared polio-free in 2018.
One overlooked dimension to the resurgence of polio numbers, officials say, could be Pakistan’s general elections.
Health workers insist that national polls disrupt the immunization drives, leading to a spike in the deadly disease every five years.
“Whenever a new government comes in, the bureaucracy overlooking the health campaigns is transferred, posted or changed,” Atta said. “The country has historically reported higher polio cases a year after elections.”
There may be some truth to this pattern. In 2013, when Pakistan went to the ballot, the tally of polio cases was 93. The next year, these shot up to 306. Then again, the year of the 2018 elections, a total of 12 cases were reported from across the country. Now, the newly-elected Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is grappling with 69 cases.
“Pakistan now accounts for 80 percent of all wild polio cases globally,” the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s media team told Arab News via email. “The importance of Pakistan to the success of the global eradication, therefore, cannot be understated.”
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International and UNICEF are the international partners and donors of the country’s polio eradication initiative.
A concocted video circulated widely on social media in April showed children falling sick after taking anti-polio drops in Peshawar. Later, a right-wing televangelist called the immunization drive “dangerous” on his weekly TV show.
The rumors stuck. Mobs rioted in KP province and three polio workers were killed.
“After the fake video, the situation on ground became terrible,” Saba Gul, a health worker in Peshawar told Arab News. “No one would want to listen to us or let us in their homes.”
Though the men behind the April scam were arrested and videos of the televangelist were taken down, the damage had been done. From July to date, over 1,000 Facebook and Twitter accounts have been suspended over harmful polio-related content.
Officials at WHO working in tandem with local administration said the program had the ‘highest level’ of political commitment with the full support of the government and Pakistan army.
“We knew that the last few steps in polio eradication would be the hardest,” Dr. Palitha Mahipala, the WHO representative in Pakistan, told Arab News.
Settled in, the new government has now promised to restructure the polio campaign, including running a high-profile media campaign starting next month.
By 2022, Babar Atta, said he was confident his team would eliminate polio.
“Pakistan is the last and final battleground of the virus,” he said.
With record new cases, Pakistan is polio's final frontier
With record new cases, Pakistan is polio's final frontier
- Pakistan reported 69 polio cases this year, up from 12 last year
- Officials and health workers say national elections disrupt the immunization campaign every five years
Clashes between India and Pakistan upend lives in a Kashmiri village
- Following May 10 truce, residents of Gingal returned to assess the damage
- Those with intact or livable houses sheltered neighbors who had lost theirs
GINGAL: Mohammad Younis Khan was among 40 residents seeking shelter in a cowshed when shelling began in Gingal, a scenic mountain village in north Kashmir on the Indian-administered side of the de facto border with Pakistan. Men, women and children sought refuge in the 3-meter-by-4.2 meter (10-feet-by-14 feet) space, which they felt offered greater safety than their brick and cement homes.
Huddled together, they heard the swoosh and thunder of the projectiles being fired from both sides of the border. When they heard a very loud sound from just outside the shelter, they held their breath and expected the worst. But the projectile had landed on soft earth and detonated a couple of feet below the ground sparing them.
Younis, who could tell the outgoing projectiles from the incoming ones by the sound they made, described the impact outside “as if a lightning bolt had struck the ground.” They all feared that India and Pakistan were at war and they would not survive the night.
“We were so scared that we didn’t dare go out to a water tap just four feet away from the door even when the children were crying of thirst,” Younis told The Associated Press.
Mohammad Shafi and four family members were having dinner in their kitchen when they heard explosions and ran outside. They had just managed to reach the road when they saw a blast damage the kitchen they had been dining in. They ran down a slope and hid among trees.
It was the night of May 8, and the shelling had intensified from the previous evening. Nasreena Begum rushed out, leaving her special-needs son behind as he was too heavy to be carried. She was tormented but was relieved to find him safe at home the following morning.
Most residents left Gingal for the town of Baramulla about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south, where some saw their homes destroyed on TV or social media.
Naseer Ahmad, a Jammu & Kashmir police officer posted in south Kashmir, learned via Facebook that shelling damaged his Paranpillan home, instantly recognizable by the surprisingly intact large walnut tree beside it.
Following the May 10 ceasefire, residents of Gingal returned to assess the damage, finding their homes riddled with shrapnel. Those with intact or livable houses sheltered neighbors who had lost theirs.
About 160 kilometers (100 miles) south, the usually bustling tourist spot of Pahalgam is now quiet, its residents facing a different challenge. It was here when, on April 22, militants killed 26 tourists in the worst assault in years targeting civilians in the restive region.
Pahalgam, usually lively with May holidaymakers, is now deserted. Businesses are shuttered and tourist attractions within a 30-kilometer (18-mile) radius of the assault site are closed to locals and visitors alike.
Back in Gingal, Younis prays for peace.
“Where will we go if the clashes continue? Drones can reach anywhere,” he said. “Those who want war have never experienced it.”
Gunmen kill four paramilitary troops in attack on security post in Pakistan’s southwest
- No group immediately claims responsibility for the assault in Balochistan’s Khuzdar district
- Local official says security forces have surrounded the area and a hunt is on for the assailants
QUETTA: Unidentified gunmen targeted a security check post and killed four members of the Levies paramilitary force in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, officials said on Saturday.
The attack targeted the Samand post located some 20 kilometers from Khuzdar city in wee hours of Saturday, according to Deputy Commissioner Yasir Iqbal Dashti. Four Levies men were killed as a result of an intense exchange of gunfire.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault but suspicion is likely to fall on Baloch separatists who have intensified their attacks in the province over the last one year.
“The attackers managed to flee by taking advantage of the dark and the bodies of the slain troops were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital Khuzdar,” Dashti told Arab News.
“Security forces have surrounded the area and a hunt for the attackers is underway.”
Balochistan, Pakistan’s most impoverished province, has been the site of a decades-old insurgency, where separatist militants often target security forces, police, foreigners and ethnic Punjabi commuters and workers, who they see as “outsiders,” by wresting control of highways and remote towns.
In Jan., dozens of fighters of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) separatist group launched a brazen attack on Khuzdar’s Zehri town and seized control of its main market for hours. The militants had set government buildings ablaze and snatched Levies’ vehicles and weapons.
This month, gunmen killed three people, including two barbers from the eastern Punjab province, and set a police vehicle ablaze in Balochistan’s Lasbela district, officials said.
The separatists accuse Islamabad of exploiting the province’s natural resources, such as gold and copper, and accuse foreigners and people from other province of backing the Pakistani state. Successive Pakistani governments have denied the allegations and said they only worked for the uplift of the region and its people.
Pakistan PM reaffirms desire for peace in South Asia in talks with UK foreign secretary
- David Lammy is on first official visit to Islamabad amid tensions following India-Pakistan standoff
- Pakistan and UK express satisfaction over bilateral economic cooperation, development partnership
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has reaffirmed his desire for peace in South Asia despite a recent military standoff with India, Sharif’s office said on Saturday, following his meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
The meeting between Lammy and PM Sharif took place in Islamabad during the UK foreign secretary’s first official visit to Pakistan, just days after one of the most serious military confrontations between the South Asian nuclear-armed rivals in decades.
Fighting erupted last week when India launched strikes on what it said were “terrorist camps” in Pakistan following a deadly April attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people. New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing the militants behind the assault, an allegation Pakistan denies.
Four days of drone, missile and artillery exchanges followed, killing around 70 people, including dozens of civilians, on both sides of the border. The conflict raised fears of a broader war before a ceasefire was announced by US President Donald Trump.
“While reaffirming Pakistan’s firm commitment to upholding the ceasefire understanding, the Prime Minister stressed that Pakistan had exercised great patience and restraint in the face of India’s baseless accusations and unprovoked aggression,” Sharif office said, after his talks with Lammy.
“He reiterated that in exercise of the right to self-defense, Pakistan’s response was measured, proportionate and targeted. He reaffirmed Pakistan’s strong desire for peace in South Asia, while defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity at all costs.”
Last week’s hostilities between Pakistan and India had raised alarm among world powers about a full-blown war in South Asia. Britain was among several countries that called for restraint, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying at the time that the UK was “urgently engaging” with both sides.
“The UK Foreign Secretary congratulated the Prime Minister on the ceasefire understanding and said the UK would continue to play a constructive role for promotion of peace and stability in the region,” Sharif’s office said.
During the meeting, Sharif expressed his satisfaction at the positive trajectory of Pakistan-UK ties and reiterated his desire to enhance bilateral cooperation across all spheres, according to his office. He conveyed his warm greetings to His Majesty King Charles III as well as to PM Starmer.
On Friday, Lammy also met Pakistani deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, and held detailed discussions on recent developments in South Asia, particularly the situation after the ceasefire understanding between Pakistan and India, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said.
“Dar briefed the UK Foreign Secretary on India’s unprovoked and belligerent actions, which constituted a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, international law, the UN Charter, and established norms of interstate relations,” it said.
“He underlined that Pakistan exercised its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, and that Pakistan’s response remained limited, precise, and proportionate, with utmost care taken to avoid civilian casualties.”
Dar thanked the UK for its constructive engagement in de-escalation during the conflict.
Lammy’s visit, the foreign ministry said, underscored the “robust and multifaceted partnership” between the two nations and their commitment to regional and international peace.
Elephants undergoing medical treatment in Karachi show signs of recovery — wildlife expert
- Safari Park elephants Madhubala and Malika were diagnosed with tuberculosis earlier this month
- Authorities brought in a Sri Lankan wildlife health specialist to oversee the elephants’ treatment
KARACHI: Medical experts treating two elephants diagnosed with tuberculosis at Karachi’s Safari Park said on Friday the animals were responding well to treatment and remained under constant observation as part of a long-term recovery plan.
The update was shared at a news briefing by Dr. Budhika Bhandara, a wildlife health specialist from Sri Lanka, who was on a 17-day visit in Karachi to supervise the treatment of elephants Madhubala and Malika.
The two elephants were diagnosed with TB earlier this month, prompting the park to launch an intensive treatment program under international protocols.
“We are treating them very well,” Dr. Bhandara told reporters. “The elephants are showing clinical signs, but they are not weak. We have started with a two-month initial phase of daily doses, followed by a continuation phase as per the standard operating procedures.”
Under the treatment plan, the elephants will receive continuous medication and monitoring for ten months after the initial phase.
The animals are being kept under round-the-clock supervision, and park officials have restricted access to the enclosure for one year to minimize stress and prevent any risk of disease transmission.
Dr. Bhandara, who has previously treated 15 elephants for TB, expressed optimism that Madhubala and Malika would recover.
He noted that both elephants are closely monitored and undergo health evaluations every two months, with full medical screenings scheduled every six months. Their most recent dose was administered 13 days ago.
Visitors to the Safari Park are currently only allowed to view the elephants from designated buses or a safe distance, as part of efforts to ensure a stress-free environment during their recovery.
The cautious approach follows years of concern raised by international animal welfare organizations over the treatment of elephants in Karachi.
In 2021, the global group Four Paws assessed the city’s African elephants and called for urgent medical care, improved nutrition and enriched environments to support their wellbeing.
The issue gained further attention after the deaths of two elephants — Noor Jehan in 2023 at the Karachi Zoo and Sonia in late 2024 — both of which highlighted systemic gaps in animal care.
Since then, local authorities have taken steps to improve conditions, including the formation of a technical committee and increased collaboration with foreign veterinary experts.
PM Sharif invites India to open dialogue, says past wars failed to resolve key issues
- The prime minister says Pakistan and India are neighbors and must choose between being peaceful or unruly
- He thanks Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries for helping de-escalate the recent conflict
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday called for renewed dialogue with India, saying the two nuclear-armed neighbors had fought three wars since independence without resolving their disputes while emphasizing the need to engage in talks to address outstanding issues.
Sharif made these remarks during a ceremony in Islamabad commemorating the “Day of Gratitude,” held to honor Pakistan’s military response to Indian strikes inside its territory last week. The event was attended by the chiefs of the armed forces, senior officials and dignitaries. The event featured a flypast and national songs.
The recent India-Pakistan standoff was triggered by an attack in Pahalgam, a tourist hotspot in Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted in the deaths of 26 people. India accused Pakistan of involvement, an allegation Islamabad denied while seeking an impartial international probe. The situation escalated into missile and drone exchanges before a ceasefire was announced on May 10.
“Whether we like it or not, we are there forever as neighbors,” the prime minister said, referring to India and Pakistan. “It’s up to us whether we want to be unruly neighbors or peaceful ones.”
“We have fought three wars that solved nothing,” he continued. “Rather, they brought more poverty, unemployment and other problems on both sides. So the lesson is that we have to sit down at the table like peaceful neighbors and settle our outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir.”
Sharif reiterated that Pakistan had no involvement in the Pahalgam incident and expressed gratitude to countries that assisted in de-escalating the conflict.
“I’m extremely grateful to all those friendly countries who have been very helpful in promoting peace and ceasefire in this part of the world... particularly Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iran, Türkiye, China and others,” he added.
Sharif extended special thanks to US President Donald Trump for his role in mediating the ceasefire.
“Above all, I would like to mention and thank President Trump for his very brave leadership and his vision that peace must be restored in South Asia sooner rather than later,” he said. “His path-breaking and strategic leadership... averted a very lethal looming war in this part of the world,” he said.
The prime minister emphasized the importance of resolving key issues to ensure lasting peace in the region.
“Without resolving these issues, I don’t think we will have peace in this part of the world on a long-term basis,” he said. “If we want permanent peace, then we need permanent solutions of Jammu and Kashmir and water distribution.”
