Pakistan and Afghanistan, the two remaining countries where polio is endemic, have joined forces to eradicate polio by vaccinating their children in synchronised campaigns.

The countries – which share a 2,400km porous border – have been bracketed as the major stumbling block in the drive for the global eradication of polio. These countries have been tackling the Taliban’s opposition to the administration of oral polio vaccine (OPV) to children.

Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), along with the adjacent Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), as well as the adjoining Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, have been declared a polio-endemic geographical block by the World Health Organisation.

“We have started synchronised immunisation campaigns in KP, Fata and Afghanistan with a view to ensure vaccination of all children on both sides of the border,” said KP’s health minister, Shahram Tarakai.

“There are about 100,000 children [whose parents] refuse vaccination on both sides of the border. They pose a threat to the polio eradication campaign. Each child should get vaccinated,” he said.

The government has enlisted the support of Islamic scholars to combat refusals against OPV, said KP’s top polio officer, Dr Ayub Roz.

Taliban groups have been campaigning against OPV because they consider it a ploy by the US to render recipients impotent or infertile, and reduce the population of Muslims.

Ayub Roz said scholars have been involved in the vaccination campaigns to dispel the myth that OPV was against Islam and that it affected fertility.

Maulana Samiul Haq, chief of Pakistan’s Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Haqqani in Akora Khattak, has been given the task of countering the Taliban’s anti-vaccine campaign. He said the scholars have been engaged to accompany health workers and urge parents that OPV is important for their kids to safeguard them against disabilities.

“It is the responsibility of the parents to protect their children against diseases and provide them with safe and healthy environments. We have convinced 10,000 parents since January on vaccination of their children,” he said.

Muhammad Rizwan, a farmer and resident of Nowshera, one of the 26 districts of KP, said he had not been vaccinating his children under the misconception that it wasn’t allowed in Islam. “As a result, my eldest son, aged four years, was diagnosed positive for polio. Now, upon the persuasion of religious leaders, I have been vaccinating my two other sons to let them grow healthy,” Rizwan said.

According to Rizwan, the Taliban have been warning people against vaccination in these areas but local clerics have started to win parents round. “Parents are responding to religious leaders and are bringing their children for immunisation in droves,” he said.

The KP police chief, Nasir Khan Durrani, said they have been deploying more than 10,000 policemen for the security of health workers.

“Militants have killed 70 health workers during the polio campaign from 2012 to 2015 but there [have been] no such incidents in 2016,” he said.

A case in February in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, bordering Fata and KP, has triggered alarm bells, prompting both countries to speed up the immunisation drive in border areas.

More than 60 polio cases reported last year were in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Peshawar registered 10 polio cases of KP’s total 18 in 2015 mainly because of free and unchecked movements of children from Afghanistan and Fata. Two of these cases had links to the virus in Afghanistan.

Dr Ikhtiar Ali, Fata’s polio officer, said synchronised campaigns that began in Pakistan and Afghanistan in January have paid off: as of 16 March, the number of cases in Pakistan were six, and in Afghanistan one. The focus is on strengthening border vaccination, with 14 vaccination points set up on the border.

Ahmed Barakzai, a polio officer in Afghanistan’s Nangrahar province, said the advocacy campaigns launched with support of community elders and religious leaders have meant vaccination levels are showing signs of improvement.

Pakistan’s health minister, Saira Afzal Tarar, said the synchronised campaigns have proved fruitful. Part of the problem has been the influx of 6 million Afghan refugees into Pakistan. Lack of vaccination in Afghanistan meant children carried the virus across the border. Now, Tarar said, every child is getting OPV at the border points, decreasing local children’s chances of infection.