In counter-terrorism efforts, risking health and security of civilians should be marked as a red line, which must never be crossed. However, according to a report published in the UK-based newspaper The Guardian, some startling allegations were made against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US regarding using a vaccine campaign as a front for its covert operation in Abbottabad.
The news report alleged that prior to the May 2 operation, which killed Osama bin Laden, CIA employed a Pakistani government doctor to organise fake vaccination drives in Abbottabad in an attempt to collect DNA samples from bin Laden's children to confirm his presence in the compound. The Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, has now been detained by local intelligence agencies while the government has also suspended him. As the investigation is underway to identify the local support CIA received in finding bin Laden, the negative impact of the newspaper's story will primarily be on the current national polio eradication drive.
The number of polio cases in Pakistan has been on the rise since 2005. Pakistan is one of the four polio-endemic countries of the world where polio was never eradicated while the world witnessed a 99 percent drop in reported cases since the late 1980s. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics, Pakistan currently exceeds the other four polio-endemic countries - Afghanistan, India and Nigeria - in the number of reported polio cases. Though the number of nation-wide cases of polio infection dropped from an estimated 1,155 cases in 1997 to 28 cases in 2005, since then this number has been on a consistent rise. Till July 2011, 64 cases have already been reported in the country which is a staggeringly high figure, especially when compared with Nigeria, the second-highest from the list of other polio-endemic countries, where the total number of cases is 12.
The three pockets of polio concentration in the country, as identified by WHO, include Karachi (owing to the large-scale migration of people to the city), some districts of Balochistan, and ultra conservative areas of Fata and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The areas, which are the breeding grounds of polio in Balochistan, KP and Fata are all along the Pak-Afghan border. It is difficult to gain access to these places because of raging insurgencies and the overall security situation. Also with relatively large-scale traffic between Pakistan and Afghanistan, it has been very difficult to contain the disease. In addition to these problems, another big hurdle for the government is the paranoia of a considerable number of people in Fata and KP, fuelled by local clerics, who claim that any kind of vaccination is an attempt by the "foreign countries" to sterilise Muslims. In 2007, thousands of children in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata could not be administered polio vaccination for this very reason.
Amidst the country's struggle against a debilitating disease, the tactic employed by the CIA is irresponsible and unequivocally deplorable. The government is already struggling with faulty institutional mechanisms in the health sector, chronic corruption leading to the sale of free vaccinations to private hospitals, security situation within the northern parts of the country, and lack of control over the virus transmission across porous borders. The last thing this country needs is vehement protests by rabid anti-west elements based on the short-sighted, damaging tactic of a foreign intelligence agency. The CIA's covert operation can set the anti-polio campaign back by a few years and ruin the progress made till now.
The battle for eradication of polio has now become more challenging because of this shameful act. The ongoing phase of National Immunisation is aiming to reach approximately 32.7 million children for the polio vaccine. But post-Dr Afridi scandal, things might not go as smoothly as planned. In addition to accusing the Americans of attempting to diminish Muslim populations, the militants and their supporters in Fata and KP will now be more averse to vaccine programmes in the area out of fear of it being a covert intelligence operation. Only this time around, they will have a precedent to quote in their favour.
A slightly modified version appeared in Business Recorder (24 July 2011)
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