KANDAHAR: Two-year-old Farid should have been vaccinated against polio, but his family like many in rural Afghanistan believed the conspiracy theories and refused to have him inoculated.

He contracted the virus, and now faces an uphill battle against a potentially f atal disease with no cure.

`When the doctors told me he had polio, I felt remorse. I had believed people who told me the polio vaccine was a plot against Muslims,` Abdul Wali, the child`s uncle and head of the family, said of his decision to rule against inoculation.

In the past decade, the numbers of people infected with polio declined from a high of 80 in 2011 to 13 in 2016.

But last year there was a jump in new cases with 21 reported across the country.

Polio immunisation is compulsory in Afghanistan, but distrust of vaccines is rife, and the programmes are difficult to enforce, particularly in rural regions.The Taliban, having previously restricted access to such programmes for residents living in areas they control, say they have instituted a total ban on inoculations.

Militants and religious leaders tell the community that vaccines are a Western conspiracy aiming to sterilise Muslim children, or that suchprogrammes are an elaborate cover for Western or Afghan government spies.

The CIA used a fake immunisation campaign to help track down Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, where US forces later killed him in 2011, which has fuelled the conspiracy theories.Fears run so deep that some parents force their children to vomit af ter they receive the compulsory polio drops in government-run health centres.

`We see this a lot,` said Aziza Watanwal, a doctor in Kandahar city.

`They believe in the propaganda.

Yar Mohammad, who brought his three-year-old daughter Razia to a clinic in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, said the local cleric told villagers the polio vaccine weakens one`s f aith.

The child contracted the disease.

`Now she is paralysed,` Mohammad said, as he looked at his daughter lying in a bed.

`Infidel`s campaign` In the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, home largely to conservative tribal communities, claims that the polio vaccine contains impure particles including blood from pigs, a taboo animal in Islam are widely shared.

`I have heard from elders and scholars here and in Pakistan that the polio vaccine is impure and those who receive it will grow up with a weak f aith in Allah,` Kandahar city resident Abdul Wasay Rahimi said.

All seven of Afghanistan`s polio cases so far this year have been in Taliban-controlled areas across thesouth, according to health of ficials.

Hedayatullah Stanikzai, a senior adviser to the Afghan health minister, said the Taliban last year had barred house-to-house vaccinations, forcing health workers to use mosques as vaccination centres.

Health experts view the door-todoor vaccination campaign as the best way to eradicate polio. But the tactic has fallen under a cloud of suspicion, in part because of the CIA ruse.

`We tell residents the vaccination workers are helping the vulnerable children.Theyarenotspies,`Stanikzai said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said his organisation believed polio vaccination workers use the programmes as a ruse to gather intelligence in areas under insurgent control, then report this to foreign forces.

`There are houses of [Taliban] officials, who are identified [during vaccination drives] and then these houses are hit by air strikes f rom the invading forces,` Mujahid said.

He claimed the Taliban banned the polio vaccinations as a response to these concerns, claiming the move was to avoid foreign attacks and civilian casualties.

`We banned the vaccinations and until we are assured that such incidents do not repeat, we cannot allowthem back,` Mujahid insisted.

Millions at risk The anti-vaccination phenomenon has spiralled worldwide as adherents peddle baseless claims that are amplified through social media, resulting in a resurgence of highly contagious diseases.

In the US, the number of measles cases have hit their highest levels in 25 years.

Aside from Afghanistan, polio is endemic in two other countries Pakistan and Nigeria although a relatively rare strain was also detected in Papua New Guinea last year.

More than one million Afghan children were deprived of polio vaccinations in 2018, said Stanikzai, who also oversees Afghanistan`s health ministry campaign for polio eradication.

If the Taliban continue their ban, more than two million children would be deprived of the vaccination, he warned.

`Conspiracy theories can in particular flourish where people`s lives are strictly controlled by hardline militants,` Afghan sociologist and medical expert, Wahid Majroh said.

`So, when these militants tell the people that vaccines are bad, it would be hard to convince them it is good, he said.-AFP