The United Nations said on Monday that the Taliban has halted the polio immunisation program in Afghanistan.
Because the polio virus is one of the most contagious in the world, any unvaccinated child population where the virus is spreading might undo years of progress toward polio eradication, resulting in a devastating setback for the cause.
Afghanistan is one of two countries where the potentially deadly, paralyzing disease has yet to be contained.
Pakistan is the other. The Taliban’s decision is likely to have a profound impact on other countries in the region and beyond.
The ban was announced to UN agencies just before the September immunisation campaign was set to begin.
There was no explanation for the suspension, and no one from the Taliban-controlled government was immediately available for comment.
A senior World Health Organisation official said that discussions were underway to shift away from house-to-house vaccines and toward immunisations in sites such as mosques.
The WHO has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023.
Polio campaigns in neighbouring Pakistan are regularly marred by violence.
As recently as August, the WHO reported that Afghanistan and Pakistan were continuing to implement an intensive and synchronised campaign focusing on improved vaccination coverage in endemic zones and an effective and timely response to detections elsewhere.
During a statewide campaign in June 2024, Afghanistan adopted a house-to-house vaccination method for the first time in five years, according to the WHO, which helped reach the majority of the targeted children.
However, southern Kandahar province, home to Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, conducted site-to-site or mosque-to-mosque vaccination efforts, which are less effective than traveling to people’s homes.
Kandahar continues to have a large pool of susceptible children because it is not carrying out house-to-house vaccinations, the WHO said.
The overall women’s inclusion in vaccination campaigns remains around 20 per cent in Afghanistan, leading to inadequate access to all children in some areas, it said.
Any setback in Afghanistan poses a risk to the program in Pakistan due to high population movement, the WHO warned last month.
Pakistani health official Anwarul Haq said the polio virus would eventually spread and continue affecting children in both countries if vaccination campaigns aren’t run regularly and in a synchronized manner.
Afghanistan is the only neighbour from where Afghan people in large numbers come to Pakistan and then go back, said Haq, the coordinator at the National Emergency Operation Centre for Polio Eradication. People from other neighbouring countries, like India and Iran, don’t come to Pakistan in large numbers.
There needs to be a united effort to eliminate the disease, he told The Associated Press.
The campaign stoppage is the latest setback in what has become a contentious worldwide drive to eradicate polio.
The effort, which costs over USD 1 billion per year, has missed several disease-eradication dates, and technological errors in WHO and partner vaccination strategies have proven costly.
The oral vaccination has also caused outbreaks in dozens of countries spanning Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, accounting for the vast majority of polio cases worldwide.
