Polio
Afghanistan and Pakistan

The last remaining region with wild polio cases are the South Asian countries Afghanistan and Pakistan.

During 2011, the CIA ran a fake hepatitis vaccination clinic in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in an attempt to locate Osama bin Laden. This destroyed trust in vaccination programs in the region. There were attacks and deaths among vaccination workers; 66 vaccinators were killed in 2013 and 2014. In Afghanistan, the Taliban banned house-to-house polio vaccination between 2018 and 2021. These factors have set back efforts to eliminate polio by means of vaccination in these countries.

In Afghanistan, 80 cases of polio were reported from 35 districts during 2011. Incidence over the subsequent 10 years has declined to just 4 cases in 2 districts during 2021.

In Pakistan, cases dropped by 97 percent from 2014 to 2018; reasons include 440 million dirham support from the United Arab Emirates to vaccinate more than ten million children, changes in the military situation, and arrests of some of those who attacked polio workers.
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