Children in KP’s Khyber district did not fall sick due to polio vaccine; video is from November deworming campaign

The iVerify Pakistan team has reviewed this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted an investigation to determine if the incident was reported by any news outlet and reached out to a local official to corroborate the matter.

Posts by users on different social media platforms on December 9, 2024, shared videos of sick children, claiming that they became ill after being vaccinated for polio in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Khyber district. However, the children were not vaccinated for polio and did not fall sick due to it.

Pakistan is one of the last two countries in the world, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic, with the disease mostly affecting children under five, and sometimes causing lifelong paralysis. Despite global efforts to eradicate the virus, challenges such as security issues, vaccine hesitancy and misinformation have slowed progress.

Pakistan’s 2024 tally for polio cases reached 59 on Dec 2, of whom, the health ministry said on Dec 11, unvaccinated children accounted for 60 per cent of the cases.

HOW IT STARTED

The iVerify Pakistan team was alerted on Dec 9 about a post on X and requested authentication for its content.

On Dec 9, a video was shared on X by a user who according to his bio is a Pakhtun rights activist. The video showed children lying on the floor, later being transported to a hospital in ambulances.

The post was captioned, “The condition of children worsened due to giving polio drops in school. In a school in Bara, Khyber, the condition of children deteriorating after being administered polio drops has created fear and panic among parents and local people. This incident not only raises serious questions about the health system but is also another sad example of government negligence and carelessness. Parents are outraged by their children’s poor health, and no one seems to be held accountable. The success of campaigns to eradicate polio depends on public trust, but such incidents severely undermine that trust. Was the quality of the vaccine poor, or was an administration lapse to blame? Without answering these questions, it is not possible to restore public confidence. It is the responsibility of the government to conduct an immediate investigation, hold those responsible accountable, and ensure that such incidents are prevented in the future.”

The caption concluded with the hashtag, “BanOnPolio”, referring to the polio vaccine

The post did not mention the date of the events being shown in the videos. It gained 12,500 views.

The same claim and video were shared on Facebook as well by a PTI supporter on Dec 9, gaining 5,600 views.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim despite its low virality to satisfy the public’s request seeking authentication for the claim and to preemptively combat misinformation regarding the polio vaccine about which several misconceptions exist in Pakistani society and which is resisted by some segments.

Examining the second video showed the medicinal tablet packet labelled Mebendazole or chewable Vermox.

Mebendazole is used to treat pinworm, whipworm, roundworm, and hookworm infections, and is not a polio vaccine.

Among its possible side effects are diarrhoea, stomach pain, discomfort, swelling, nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite with more serious complications possibly being seizures, rash, hives, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing or swallowing
fever, sore throat, chills, or other signs of infection.

On the other hand, the polio vaccine is administered either intravenously or orally through drops. It does not involve taking tablets in any form.

Dawn correspondent Zahid Imdad also said that the person talking in the video in Pashto mentioned the state of the children after taking the medicinal tablets, instead of mentioning anything about the polio vaccine or any oral drops.

A keyword search for “deworming”, “children” and “Khyber” yielded a news article published by Tribal News Network on November 4, 2024, titled: “Dozens of children fall ill after taking deworming pills at school in Khyber district.”

The report stated, “A health crisis occurred at Government Primary School Haji Mazari Kali Ghundi, Jamrud, when several children fell ill after taking deworming pills. Sources suggest that the tablets given to the children may have been expired, triggering the incident. Concerned parents are calling for a detailed investigation to identify the cause and hold those responsible accountable.”

Additionally, a news article from Dawn, published on October 29, 2024, titled “Four-day deworming initiative launched,” confirmed that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department, in collaboration with Pemra and the Pakistan Deworming Initiative (PDI), launched a four-day deworming campaign aimed at treating over eight million children aged 5-14 in 22 high-risk districts from Nov 4-8.

Contact for further clarification on the matter on Dec 12, KP Health Department Public Relations Officer Attaullah Khan said: “In the videos under observation, we carried out a deworming initiative in November that began from the 4th or 5th in schools across the province. We received these types of complaints from Jamrud and some videos went viral and people made posts on social media on which we took immediate action and informed local administration and health officials.

“When we got to know about some complaints that something had happened to the children, some people even asked whether the medicines were expired, so there was nothing of the sort. You know that children who attend government schools, some of them were without breakfast or they had fears of the medicine so dizziness or something temporarily affected them. They were mentally apprehensive about what kind of medicine it would be so because of that there were some children affected there whom we treated and provided first aid. There were no issues but this video was exaggerated on social media. When we asked local officials they said that there were a few children who had taken the medicine on an empty stomach because of which they were somewhat affected. This is an old video and it’s been more than a month to this activity.”

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim that a video shows sick children after receiving the polio vaccine in KP’s Khyber district is false.

The video is actually from a deworming campaign in November, during which some children fell ill, and has nothing to do with the polio vaccine.