Ending the Polio Pandemic in Nigeria and Pakistan, 2012-2013.

NPR. Attacks On Health Workers Put Fight To End Polio Under Fire, February 13, 2013.

The global effort to eradicate polio has reached a bizarre stage: More people have been gunned down recently over the disease than actually infected with it.

On Friday, nine polio vaccinators in northern Nigeria were shot dead and their clinics were torched.

Whatever the vaccinators were up to in Nigeria, it wasn’t curing Polio, and the Nigerians knew it.

New York Times, Ebola Drug Could Save a Few Lives. But Whose, August 9, 2014.

Northern Nigeria has a history of resisting the campaign to eradicate polio, for example, with rumors circulating that vaccinations are a plot to sterilize Muslim women. At least nine polio immunization workers were shot to death there in February 2013.

Continuing with NPR:

As deadly attacks on polio vaccinators are escalating, the number of new polio cases has dropped dramatically.

In 2011, there were 716 polio cases reported worldwide. Last year that number decreased to 222. And the virus is now endemic in only three countries: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

So far this year, the tally is just one case, according to the World Health Organization. This is the lowest rate of polio ever seen and could indicate that the disease is on its last legs.

Less vaccines, less polio. Oh wait wait wait, I mean the vaccines cured polio. Our work is done here. Let’s get the hell out of here.

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Polio was also a focus in another Muslim country, Pakistan. NPR, How The Taliban Is Thwarting The War On Polio, October 17, 2012

Pakistan is one of the remaining corners of the world where polio still lingers.

Oh. The nation we were droning had polio. Not only that, the most dangerous of the “militants” in Pakistan had polio most frequently, as a matter of fact.

About 75 percent of Pakistan's polio cases can be traced back to certain areas there, primarily FATA, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Quetta, in Baluchistan, is also difficult to enter, says Pakistan's point person for polio, Shahnaz Wazir Ali.

The Taliban, al-Qaida and other Islamist groups are based throughout the region, and it's volatile and dangerous.

Polio strikes dangerous militants more often apparently.

The drone strikes which began during the Bush Administration and increased steadily throughout the Obama Administration were criticized for killing many women and children in Pakistan.

Hey, stop droning those women and children. Vaccinate them.

Last year (2011), the government (Pakistan) declared a national emergency, and with the help of international institutions, embarked on an aggressive vaccination campaign.

Rumors about the polio vaccine are rife: It'll make the children sterile; it contains the AIDS virus; the vaccinators are really CIA agents.

No way, come on. Would the CIA would sterilize children with vaccines? (Would they fake hijacked plane crashes against the World Trade Center and Pentagon and blame it on al-Qaeda, to create a false basis to invade the Middle East? Would they put a child rapist’s name (George Bush) on their headquarters?)

I mean, yeah, the CIA had vaccination teams in Pakistan. But it wasn’t like the CIA was all of the vaccination teams or anything. New York Times, C.I.A. Vaccine Ruse May Have Harmed the War on Polio, July 9, 2012:

In Pakistan, where polio has never been eliminated, the C.I.A.’s decision to send a vaccination team into the Bin Laden compound to gather information and DNA samples clearly hurt the national polio drive. The question is: How badly?

After the ruse by Dr. Shakil Afridi was revealed by a British newspaper a year ago, angry villagers, especially in the lawless tribal areas on the Afghan border, chased off legitimate vaccinators, accusing them of being spies.

Darn it. They just don’t know what’s good for them.

And then, the militants finally went militant. New York Times: Female Vaccination Workers, Essential in Pakistan, Become Prey. December 20, 2012:

LAHORE, Pakistan — The front-line heroes of Pakistan’s war on polio are its volunteers: young women who tread fearlessly from door to door, in slums and highland villages, administering precious drops of vaccine to children in places where their immunization campaign is often viewed with suspicion.

Now, those workers have become quarry. After militants stalked and killed eight of them over the course of a three-day, nationwide vaccination drive, the United Nations suspended its anti-polio work in Pakistan on Wednesday, and one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health campaigns has been plunged into crisis. A ninth victim died on Thursday, a day after being shot in the northwestern city of Peshawar, The Associated Press reported.

“Savages.” -Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, Apocalypse Now, 1979

Charles Wright