KABUL — The Taliban’s decision to ban door-to-door polio vaccinations in Afghanistan has contributed to a rise in reported cases of the disease, according to a new report by the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN).
The report states that after twice pausing the national polio vaccination program in 2024, the Taliban resumed the campaign for children under five in late October but restricted vaccinations to mosques and village centers, rather than allowing health workers to visit homes.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recorded 25 polio cases in Afghanistan in 2024, the highest number in four years. However, a Taliban health ministry spokesman denied the cases, saying, “No polio case was recorded in the country.”
The AAN report, authored by Jelena Bjelica and Nur Khan Himmat, includes interviews with parents in some of the 16 provinces targeted for polio immunization in October and November. Many said the new vaccination approach—limited to public gathering places—has made it harder to ensure all children receive the vaccine.
One father recounted how he almost missed the vaccination campaign entirely.
“My brother was visiting and told me that the polio vaccinators had come and were immunizing children in front of the mosque. I asked him to help take my two children. If he hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have known about the campaign, and my children wouldn’t have been vaccinated,” he said.
Afghanistan and Pakistan remain the only two countries in the world where polio is still endemic.
Polio vaccination has been compulsory in Afghanistan since 1978, when the country launched its Mass Immunization Program. Since then, cases have declined from thousands in the 1980s to hundreds in the 1990s, with only a handful recorded annually in the 2000s.
Health experts warn that interruptions in vaccination campaigns, particularly the shift away from house-to-house immunization, could reverse decades of progress in eradicating the disease.
