Key result
Collaborations between Pakistan's security forces and the polio eradication campaign helped achieve a reduction of over 80% in new polio cases reported in 2015 compared to 2014.
Global polio eradication depends on addressing vaccine hesitancy, poor health infrastructure, and conflict in Pakistan.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Supports security-health collaborations in conflict zones for polio control; leaves open generalizability and sustainability in other endemic settings.
Since the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988 the global incidence of poliomyelitis has fallen by nearly 99 %. From a situation where wild type poliovirus was endemic in 125 countries across five continents, transmission is now limited to regions of just three countries - Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. A sharp increase in Pakistan's poliomyelitis cases in 2014 prompted the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee to declare the situation a 'public health emergency of international concern'. Global polio eradication hinges on Pakistan's ability to address the religious, political and socioeconomic barriers to immunisation; including discrepancies in vaccine coverage, a poor health infrastructure, and conflict in polio-endemic regions of the country. This analysis provides an overview of the GPEI, focusing on the historical and contemporary challenges facing Pakistan's polio eradication programme and the impact of conflict and insecurity, and sheds light on strategies to combat vaccine hesitancy, engage local communities and build on recent progress towards polio eradication in Pakistan.
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Hussain et al. (2016) conducted a review in Poliomyelitis. Polio eradication campaign was evaluated. Collaborations between Pakistan's security forces and the polio eradication campaign helped achieve a reduction of over 80% in new polio cases reported in 2015 compared to 2014.
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