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Israel and Hamas recently paused their fighting in Gaza so polio vaccines could be distributed to children. In Afghanistan, the Taliban took steps to effectively suspend polio vaccinations.听

Polio. For Americans, the terrible disease is but a vague national memory鈥� the stuff of black and white newsreel footage. Patients in iron lungs, children struggling with braces, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wheelchair bound.听听

The US saw its last case of in 1979. Like other 鈥渨ild鈥� viruses, wild polio is one of three naturally occurring strains that spreads in the environment, as opposed to vaccine-derived polio, which is extremely rare. 听But in many parts of the world the disease is not so distant a memory. Just 30 years ago, more than 125 countries had one of the poliovirus鈥檚 3 strains. Back then, nearly a year鈥攎ostly infants and children under five years old鈥攚ere left partially or completely paralyzed by their brush with the disease. But thanks to years of concerted vaccination efforts organized through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the number of people afflicted with polio has fallen dramatically鈥o just six wild poliovirus cases in 2021. According to the World Health Organization, endemic wild poliovirus remained only in two countries as of 2022: Pakistan and Afghanistan.听

The reason we still talk about polio鈥攚hy we need to talk about polio鈥攊s just how contagious this disease is. Polio is spread through person-to-person contact, and those infected are most contagious before symptoms of the disease actually appear. As a result, a single case can quickly lead to a widespread outbreak.听

, despite being polio-free for some 25 years, health care officials in Gaza detected the presence of one type of the virus. Following a report of a case of paralysis鈥攚hich occurs in only one out of every 200 or so instances of infection鈥攐fficials realized that the virus was spreading, and spreading fast.听

Israel and Hamas may hate each other, but they hate鈥攁nd yes, fear鈥攑olio even more. Their representatives quickly agreed to several brief pauses in fighting to allow United Nations agencies and their partners to launch a rapid multi-round vaccination campaign. Despite significant obstacles鈥攆rom damaged roads and destroyed health facilities, to fuel shortages and a lack of trained healthcare workers鈥攈umanitarian workers during the campaign鈥檚 first round. The effort involved more than 700 teams comprised of nearly 2,700 health workers tirelessly raising awareness of vaccination sites where children could receive oral vaccines. A of vaccinations will hopefully soon be underway.听

And then there鈥檚 Afghanistan. Since worldwide eradication efforts began in earnest in 1988, Afghanistan has been one of the few countries where transmission of Type 1 Wild Polio (WPV1) has . Vaccination efforts have often been hampered by misinformation-fueled vaccine skepticism and, more broadly, politicization of international global health efforts. In 2024 alone, Afghanistan reported and 44 positive environmental samples of polio.听听

Tragically, a recent Taliban decision to temporarily suspend Afghanistan鈥檚 door-to-door vaccination program is likely to make the situation dramatically worse. The suspension is driven by two key factors, neither directly related to children鈥檚 health. The first is the push by Taliban leaders to further limit the role of women in society, as women make up the majority of vaccine administrators. The second has even less to do with children鈥檚 health: Taliban officials are trying to , which they fear door-to-door campaigns would expose.听听

The Taliban claims the campaign against Polio isn鈥檛 suspended but is merely transitioning to a stationary campaign run out of local mosques鈥� but this method won鈥檛 reach enough children quickly enough to create sufficient community immunity and stop the virus鈥檚 spread.听

Afghanistan鈥檚 children and their families won鈥檛 be the only ones bearing the costs and consequences of the Taliban鈥檚 decision. In neighboring Pakistan, the only other country in the world where WPV1 remains, infections are likely to rise as cross-border travel between the two countries continues. The situation has also been aggravated by growing misinformation-driven claims that vaccines are part of conspiracies to sterilize children, which in turn has made Pakistan鈥檚 vaccination teams .听听

It鈥檚 hard to find many rays of sunshine in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, yet the joint efforts of officials to pause fighting to prevent a potential regional polio outbreak is one hopeful glimmer of humanity trumping inhumanity. But in Afghanistan, as 鈥�Stubborn Things鈥� has often noted, darkness seems to be getting鈥� well, darker, with each new Taliban pronouncement. Through widespread immunization, the world eradicated two types of wild polio virus, reduced cases of polio , and prevented over 20 million instances of paralysis. But the Taliban doesn鈥檛 seem to care.听

In 1985, the rockstar Sting released a song entitled 鈥淩ussians,鈥� which pointed to the universal sentiment of caring about our children as the hope for our way out of the nuclear threat posed by the Cold War. He closed his song with the somber observation, 鈥淲e share the same biology, regardless of ideology. But what might save us, me and you, is if the Russians love their children too.鈥澨�

Forty years later, perhaps it鈥檚 time for a new song, 鈥淭aliban,鈥� in hopes of saving a generation from the nightmare of polio. Surely Afghan leaders 鈥渓ove their children too?鈥澨�

This blog was researched and drafted with assistance from Dhruvi Thakker and Katherine Schauer.听