Karachi \u2014 Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah announced on Monday that Afghan children will be administered polio drops during province-wide vaccination drives and subsequently deported, framing the campaign as both a public-health imperative and a component of border security policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking to reporters in Karachi, Murad Ali Shah defended the vaccination effort and appealed to religious scholars, community leaders and all social figures to cooperate with the anti-polio campaign. \u201cUnfortunately some people turn everything into a negative. If there were any problem with the polio vaccine, then the late Shaheed Mohtarma Asifa Bhutto would not have been vaccinated,\u201d he said, invoking a well-known public example to underline his confidence in the vaccine\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chief minister said the provincial government has set up a dedicated cell at the Chief Minister\u2019s House to record data on parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. Officials will attempt to contact those parents, provide awareness and explain the importance of administering polio drops, he added. \u201cThe cell will record all data and then we will reach out to the parents. Efforts will be made to inform them and make them understand the importance of polio drops,\u201d Murad Ali Shah said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reiterating the gravity of the polio threat, the chief minister noted that wild poliovirus now remains endemic in just two countries, and described Pakistan\u2019s continuing struggle against the disease as a national embarrassment. \u201cIt is shameful for us that we have not been able to defeat polio yet,\u201d he remarked, citing nine newly reported polio cases in the province so far this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murad Ali Shah said the weekly anti-polio campaign will continue in areas such as Sohrab Goth with full intensity. He specifically stated that Afghan children encountered during these drives will be given polio drops and then deported. \u201cWe will administer polio drops to Afghan children and then deport them,\u201d he said, without providing details about the legal or logistical framework that would govern such deportations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chief minister tied the vaccination push to broader security concerns, saying that while political parties stand with the armed forces and the provincial government will not allow threats along the border to derail public-health campaigns, the government must also defend national security. \u201cAfghanistan attacked on the border and it received an answer,\u201d he asserted, adding that although there are dangers along Pakistan\u2019s frontiers, the polio campaign must continue. \u201cThis is also a war we are fighting; we must protect these children from this disease,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murad Ali Shah appealed to clerics and social leaders to play a role in supporting the drive, underscoring that community buy-in remains critical to eradicating polio. He said concerted local efforts would be required to convince hesitant families to accept vaccination and to safeguard immunization teams working in high-risk areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Public-health experts and rights advocates have in recent years warned against mixing health interventions with immigration enforcement, arguing that doing so can undermine trust in vaccination campaigns, deter vulnerable populations from seeking healthcare, and ultimately hamper disease-control efforts. Evidence from other settings shows that when vaccination is perceived as tied to immigration or punitive measures, coverage can fall and outbreaks may spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murad Ali Shah\u2019s remarks, however, reflect a political calculation in which public-health measures and security policy are presented as complementary responses to perceived cross-border threats. Officials in Sindh face the dual task of increasing vaccination coverage while also managing public concern about border security and illegal migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chief minister also highlighted efforts to track and engage with parents who refuse vaccination, suggesting that outreach and education would be the first course of action before any punitive steps. Still, his statement about deporting Afghan children after vaccinating them raises immediate questions about how authorities will identify which children are to be deported, the safeguards for unaccompanied minors, and the role of federal institutions and international bodies in such processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, the Sindh government\u2019s data on polio cases and vaccination coverage will be closely watched by national and international health agencies, which monitor eradication efforts closely and have repeatedly urged sustained, apolitical campaigns to reach every child with the vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Sindh presses ahead with its weekly campaigns in urban and peri-urban neighborhoods, including Sohrab Goth, authorities say they will continue efforts to record and address parental refusal, mobilize community leaders, and keep immunization teams operating despite security threats. Whether the plan to deport Afghan children after vaccination will be operationalized \u2014 and how it might affect overall vaccine uptake \u2014 remains to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For now, the chief minister framed the campaign in stark terms: polio is a public-health emergency and, he said, \u201cthis is a war we are fighting\u201d that requires decisive measures to protect children and eliminate the virus from the province.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Karachi \u2014 Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah announced on Monday that Afghan children will be administered polio drops during province-wide vaccination drives and subsequently deported, framing the campaign as both a public-health imperative and a component of border security policy. Speaking to reporters in Karachi, Murad Ali Shah defended the vaccination effort and appealed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15395,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15393\/revisions\/15395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}