Islamabad, March 7 (IANS) Pakistan’s persistent polio outbreak reflects political neglect, with successive governments failing to establish a coherent national pro-vaccination narrative, while not countering extremist propaganda.

The present Pakistani government has been absorbed in political and judicial manoeuvres, ignoring the public health crises, a report said on Saturday.

Citing leading Pakistani daily Dawn, it said that around one million children were not reached and nearly 53,000 families refused vaccination during Pakistan’s recent nationwide polio campaign.

“Pakistan is one of the last countries where the polio virus still exists, and even a small gap leaves thousands of children at risk. Polio is a dangerous disease that mainly affects children under five and can cause lifelong paralysis or even death. The fact that 670,000 children were recorded as ‘not available at home’ defies operational logic,” a report in ‘Pakistan Observer’ detailed.

“A child absent from one doorstep is not absent from the city; they are in schools, markets, parks or with relatives. Yet vaccination teams continue to rely on door-to-door visits alone, allowing hundreds of thousands of children to slip through the cracks. Missed children should not be a routine statistic in official briefings; they represent a systemic failure,” it added.

According to the report, the problem is particularly severe in Karachi, which recorded 31,000 refusals — accounting for 58 per cent of all refusals nationwide. This prompts urgent questions about why Pakistan’s largest and most resourced city continues to be the epicentre of vaccine resistance.

“Whether driven by misinformation, weak microplanning, poor local administration or political indifference, Karachi’s crisis demands targeted neighbourhood-level strategies and stronger engagement with community leaders. Several factors have contributed to the persistence of polio in Pakistan despite significant financial investment, especially from international funding agencies,” it noted.

The report stressed that misinformation and mistrust remain widespread among certain communities regarding the safety and effectiveness of the polio vaccine. Many Pakistanis believe that the “vaccine contains harmful substances or is part of a conspiracy”.

“This is largely due to the failure of the government that panders to the fundamentalists, in erecting an overarching narrative to counter years of brainwashing by the extreme right that got most people to shun the vaccine in Pakistan,” it mentioned.

The report cited the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, highlighting evidence of large-scale transmission in Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta and Central Pakistan, despite relatively low reported polio cases.

“Limited access to healthcare in remote areas, underreporting and surveillance challenges mean the true burden may be higher than official figures suggest,” it noted,

–IANS

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