RASC News Agency: A polio vaccination worker was shot and killed on Monday morning, May 26, in the Boland Manzil district of Gardez, the capital of Paktia province. Local sources report that another individual was wounded in the same incident, highlighting the increasingly perilous conditions facing healthcare personnel in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. According to eyewitnesses, the two vaccinators were carrying out their duties as part of a critical immunization campaign aimed at protecting children from poliovirus a disease that continues to threaten Afghanistani youth amid deteriorating healthcare conditions. The pair approached a household to request that children be brought out for vaccination. The homeowner reportedly refused the initial request. When the vaccinators insisted, in line with their humanitarian mission, gunfire erupted from within the home, leaving one dead and the other wounded.
To date, no further details have been made public regarding the condition of the injured worker. Unsurprisingly, Taliban authorities have remained silent neither condemning the attack nor offering support to the victims’ families. Their silence, as in many past cases, reflects a disturbing pattern of indifference, if not tacit complicity, in the face of escalating violence against civilian service providers. This fatal incident occurs against a backdrop of regressive policies imposed by the Taliban that have severely undermined Afghanistan’s public health infrastructure. Since reclaiming power in August 2021, the group has systematically restricted door-to-door vaccination campaigns, instead mandating that immunizations only be administered at designated sites such as mosques. This shift has had devastating consequences, cutting off access for countless families particularly those in remote or conservative communities where mobility is limited.
Public health data under Taliban rule reveals a sharp rise in polio cases across the country. In the past solar year alone, confirmed polio cases have quadrupled. The highest numbers are recorded in Taliban strongholds such as Kandahar and Helmand regions where access to healthcare has been most aggressively curtailed. Nationally, 25 polio cases have been confirmed since the group’s return to power: 11 in Kandahar, 8 in Helmand, 2 in Uruzgan, and one each in Paktika, Kunar, Nuristan, and Badghis. Experts warn that the Taliban’s ban on house-to-house vaccinations not only threatens the lives of children but also dismantles the decades-long efforts of global health organizations striving to eradicate the disease. By removing the ability of vaccinators to reach vulnerable households directly, the regime has left entire communities uninformed, unprotected, and at the mercy of preventable epidemics.
Citizens across Afghanistan have expressed grave concern that this authoritarian interference in public health is endangering lives. Many parents remain unaware of vaccination schedules, while others fear seeking services at Taliban-controlled centers due to intimidation, surveillance, or social stigma. The Taliban’s record on public health is inseparable from their broader campaign of repression. From silencing women’s voices to censoring the media and stifling digital content, the group continues to tighten its grip on every dimension of civil society. Healthcare workers especially those involved in Western-backed campaigns such as polio eradication are now being targeted in a climate of fear and impunity.
In September of last year, the Taliban formalized their anti-vaccine stance by expanding their ban on door-to-door campaigns beyond Kandahar and Helmand to the rest of the country. Since then, public health officials have observed a direct correlation between these policies and the rise in preventable diseases an outcome that risks plunging Afghanistan into a full-blown health catastrophe. The targeted killing of a vaccinator is not merely an act of local violence it is emblematic of a deeper, institutional assault on the right to health. Under Taliban rule, saving children’s lives has become a subversive act, and those who dare to serve the public good often pay the ultimate price.
If the international community fails to pressure the Taliban to reverse their draconian restrictions, Afghanistan could see the resurgence of diseases long believed to be on the verge of eradication. Worse yet, the lives of healthcare workers will remain constantly under threat in a nation where compassion is criminalized and science is smothered under ideology. The cost of Taliban control is not just political it is biological, generational, and irreversible. As this latest tragedy in Gardez makes painfully clear, the regime’s assault on public health must be challenged before Afghanistan’s future is permanently crippled.
