Shortly after the launch of a nationwide polio eradication campaign in Pakistan in April 2019, a series of anti-vaccination propaganda videos went viral on social media.

The mass panic triggered by the spread of the propaganda culminated in a record number of locals refusing the vaccine alongside an increase in attacks on health workers and security personnel. An investigation by the authorities found that the campaign had been coordinated by a local resident who was later arrested, alongside 12 accomplices, for spreading the false information.

With growing public skepticism toward the vaccine, and violent incidents targeting health workers on the rise, the Pakistani government canceled its annual nationwide anti-polio drive. The dire consequences of the anti-polio disinformation campaign in Pakistan provide a prescient reminder that the spread of false and misleading content online can cost lives, especially when deployed against public health campaigns in countries with prior histories of religious and cultural opposition toward inoculation.

Killer content

On April 22, several students in Masokhel, a village on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, were admitted to a hospital after complaining of an adverse reaction to a polio vaccine. Shortly after, social media users on Facebook and Twitter began sharing videos that allegedly depicted children fainting and vomiting after vaccination. Other users posted misleading messages, reporting that hundreds of children had died after receiving their polio drops.

The Express Tribune, a local media outlet, reported that over 25,000 children were admitted to hospitals in the locality by parents who had viewed the misleading content online. Incensed by the alleged death of local children caused by the vaccine, a large crowd ransacked the village health center.

The false reports continued to spread to other parts of the country, with local and international outlets reporting an increase in attacks by unidentified gunmen on health workers. The New York Times reported that unidentified gunmen had killed a health worker and two security personnel accompanying a team of health workers in Chaman. After another health worker was killed by gunmen in the neighboring province of Balochistan on April 25, the Pakistani government was forced to curtail the campaign to ensure the safety of the 270,000 workers administering the vaccine.

Rumors spread like wildfire

The anti-polio disinformation campaign began with the emergence of two videos depicting the same individual, later identified as local resident Nazar Muhammad. The first video shows Muhammad in a hospital room flanked by children who allegedly had an adverse reaction to the polio vaccine. Muhammad addresses the camera, complaining that locals faced an impossible choice: risk the health of their children by giving them the vaccine or risk a confrontation with law enforcement, whom he claimed were arresting locals who refused the vaccine. In a second video, Muhammad addresses local media outside the hospital, claiming that the children featured in the previous video had died after their condition worsened.

The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party’s regional division uploaded both videos online alongside a message debunking the false claims.