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. 2023 Mar;35(2-3):183-188.
doi: 10.1177/10105395231158866. Epub 2023 Mar 1.

The History and Current Killings of Polio Vaccinators in Pakistan: A Need for Targeted Surveillance Strategy

Braira Wahid  1 , Babita Kumari  1 , Khaled Mohammed Saifullah  2 , Muhammad Idrees  3
Affiliations

The History and Current Killings of Polio Vaccinators in Pakistan: A Need for Targeted Surveillance Strategy

Braira Wahid et al. Asia Pac J Public Health. 2023 Mar.

Abstract

Poliomyelitis has been eliminated from all countries of the world except Pakistan and Afghanistan. One of the major reasons is the stigmas associated with the polio vaccine that has been repetitively discussed in literature, and governments of both the countries are already making serious efforts to control this public health challenge, but till this moment, the state officials have not introduced any surveillance strategy for the security of polio workers in National Emergency Action Plan (NEAP) for Polio Eradication. This report highlights the issue of targeted killing and terrorism attacks on polio vaccinators in Pakistan and also devises a surveillance strategy to provide security to polio workers at immediate possible because the current chaos in Afghanistan will ultimately lead to more terrorist attacks on polio vaccinators.

Keywords: Afghanistan; Pakistan; endemic; polio; surveillance.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Potential hotspots of terrorist attacks on polio teams (blue highlight indicates high-risk area, red indicates intermediate risk, and red indicates low-risk area).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Target surveillance strategy to be included in National Emergency Action Plan (NEAP) for Polio Eradication.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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