In the midst of freezing temperatures, health workers in Azad Jammu Cashmire (AJK) harden difficult conditions to administer political vaccinations as a result of an increase in cases at the national level last year.
Neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only countries where polio is still endemic, activists targeting vaccination teams and their escorts of security for decades.
The first day of the annual vaccination campaign by this year polio, a police officer keeping vaccinators in northwest Pakistan was killed by activists. The campaign should last a week.
A health worker administers polio falls to a child during a door-to-door vaccination campaign in the middle of heavy snow in the Bakwali-surgan region of the Azad Jammu Cashmere valley
In cashmere, the health worker Manzoor Ahmad has traveled three feet of snow, braving temperatures as low as minus six degrees Celsius (21 degrees fahrenheit) to issue vaccinations. “It is a mountainous and stimulating area … We arrive for the vaccination against polio despite the snow,” said Ahmad, who heads the campaign in the region.
Social worker Mehnaz, who has helped vaccinators since 2018, said the dangers laid down by the extreme climate. “We have no monthly salary … We come here despite the glaciers and avalanches,” she said. “We risk our lives and leave our children at home.”
Health agents sit on snow during a polio vaccination campaign in the Azad cashmere valley on February 4, 2025. Photo: AFP
The challenge this year is higher because Pakistan, with a population of 240 million inhabitants, recorded at least 73 cases of polio in 2024, an alarming increase of only six cases the previous year.
On surganus, located 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Muzaffarabad, health workers aim to vaccinate approximately 1,700 children during the week.
Our goal is to vaccinate 750,000 children under the age of five across the country with 4,000 teams visiting houses, “said Ahmad. “There has been no case of polio in cashmere for 24 years,” he added proudly.
A health worker marks the finger of a child after administering polio drops during a vaccination reader in the Azad Jammu Cashmere valley on February 4, 2025.
Polio is easily avoidable with an oral vaccine, but the disinformation of certain Islamic leaders, wrongly affirming that the vaccine contains pork or alcohol, has embarrassed progress. Despite these challenges, health workers are continuing their vital mission to protect children from paralyzing disease.
