Over the past 10 years we have been appalled by the murders of polio vaccine workers in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria, associated with religious misinformation that vaccines are Western conspiracies.
Global Health Now reports encouraging news from Afghanistan:
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The Taliban Pivots on Polio
After two decades of banning and undermining immunization campaigns, the Taliban has now endorsed polio vaccination—providing unexpected hope that the disease could finally be eliminated in Afghanistan.
Poliovirus is still endemic in the country, but vaccinators have recently been able to get to previously unreachable virus hot spots.
- No attacks have been reported on public health workers this year.
- “We now have access all over the country,” said Hamid Jafari, director of the WHO’s regional polio eradication program.
The result: A “significant overall decline in vaccine holdouts” over the past two years: from ~230 cases per campaign to ~60. And the number of children reached by vaccinators here has more than doubled.
Longstanding claims that vaccines are Western conspiracies to cover spy operations have largely disappeared, vaccinators say.
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For further information on this news story, see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/05/taliban-afghanistan-poli...
The story talks about Afghanistan and Pakistan. It would be interesting to know if the situation has also improved in northern Nigeria.
Further, what lessons can be learned? What were the ingredients for successully persuading the religious authorities to change their attitude?
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
