Read more: SAPM launches first polio drive of 2022Since the Taliban takeover of neighbouring Afghanistan, the Pakistan version of the movement has become emboldened and its fighters frequently target polio teams. Nigeria officially eradicated wild polio in 2020, leaving Pakistan and Afghanistan as the only countries where the disease -- which causes crippling paralysis -- is still endemic. Spread through faeces and saliva, the virus has historically thrived in the blurred borderlands between the South Asian nations, where state infrastructure is weak and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have carved out a home. Still, a TTP spokesman told AFP it "never attacked any polio workers", and that security forces were their target. The theories ranged wildly: polio teams are spies, the vaccines cause infertility, or contain pig fat forbidden by Islam.

Source: The Nation January 28, 2022 00:46 UTC