Polio is a devastating infectious disease paralyzing many of those infected, but following the Taliban’s execution of 16 health workers engaged in Pakistan’s polio eradication program in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, preventing polio is now deadlier than the disease.
Following the Taliban’s targeted assassinations of polio workers, Pakistan’s polio program in acute collapse. Though the polio program has tentatively reopened under security detail, workers continue to die in the line of duty. In copycat fashion, last month workers were shot dead while vaccinating in Nigeria’s Kano province, likely executed by Nigeria’s Islamist group, Boko Haram.
via Qanta Ahmed, MD: Pakistan’s Polio Program: Suspended at Zero Dark Thirty.
