Pakistan public health campaigns have been sabotaged by a torrent of purposeful falsehoods again and again. Social media has given a fertile ground to conspiracies about poisonous polio drops and alleged Covid-19 vaccines inducing infertility among others, undermining confidence in evidence-based medicine. These lies, according to health experts, cause a real harm to the welfare of the population and leave a negative effect on Pakistan’s efforts to eliminate polio and consequently these vaccines are widely rejected, which lead to a loss of confidence in governmental health services and erosion of scientific authority. What stands out is a clear trend, “disinformation spreading the fear, vaccination campaigns failing and human lives being at stake.
Polio Eradication Under Siege
Conspiracy theories devastatingly have served to make sure that polio, a disease that was on the verge of eradication across the whole world, still haunts Pakistan. Viral videos claiming that children fall ill after receiving polio vaccination were spread, according to officials, like wildfire, causing mass panic and undermining efforts to provide polio vaccination on a large scale. In 2019, social media rumors became the critical case study as it claimed that children were dying because of poisonous drops of polio. The consequences, as reported by Reuters, were mobs burning down clinics and blocking roads and the refusal of hundreds of thousands of children to take part in the vaccination programs. It was in that campaign alone that 1.4 million children had been deprived of immunization when the chaos finally subsided.
Since polio may permanently paralyze or even kill, every unvaccinated child is a personal tragedy. Disinformation has gone further than denial and turned into violence. Medical professionals conducting immunization drives have been targeted using the guise that vaccinators were foreign agents. Even moderate communities have become victims of these falsehoods because of spreading fear regarding vaccines in Pakistan. The refusal of a hardline minority is becoming the refusal of the rest of the country, as one health official warned. In short, anti-vaccine rumors are still haunting the Pakistan polio development efforts even in 2025. A recent report found that vaccines refusals and the development of deeply ingrained distrust in science are caused by social-media fake news, particularly in Pakistan. Keeping this in mind, the current situation in Pakistan challenging polio is a chilling reminder that internet-based lies have the potential to propagate deadly illnesses.
COVID-19 Vaccination and the Infodemic
Similar patterns were observed in the Covid-19 vaccine campaigns in Pakistan. The caregivers continued to face propaganda against vaccines since 2021 and fake rumors that the vaccines lead to infertility or death, or that they serve some evil foreign propagandas. As a Gavi field report stated that these misconceptions spread quickly via social media and community gossip and violence against vaccinators became an ordinary thing, as one Lady Health Worker recounted that people assumed that we were there to inject poison. These questions of distrust came up during surveys and interviews too, “What is in this vaccine?”, “Why would foreigners be so keen to inject us?”, but had no sufficient answers. The mere fact that the vaccines campaigns were not in their best interest became a common trope among most rural populations.
According to the official numbers recorded in 2023, more than 85 percent of adults are now one-dose-vaccinated, and this was obtained with the help of mandates and incentives. Nevertheless, according to vaccinators, these statistical successes conceal the hidden harm to the population confidence. Under strict laws and their implementation, individuals followed orders because of intimidation, not because of belief that these vaccines can actually save lives. Some people came to vaccination solely due to the lack of another choice, leaving bitter, not reassured. Severe policies and rumor-mongering raised the coverage in the short term, although credibility was lost. What the experience of Pakistan shows is that vaccination campaigns should be not based solely on coercion, but rather on a sense of trust of people to which these measures had often failed to instill.
HPV Vaccine Campaign and Infertility Myths
In 2025, Pakistan initiated a countrywide HPV (cervical cancer) female vaccination campaign, which was immediately undermined by the same old fake news. Within days, health officials admitted that refusals had exceeded acceptances and this was due to the false claims that the campaign was a Western conspiracy to render people infertile. Rumors spread among the parents across Sindh and in Punjab that the vaccine would make girls infertile or even turn out to be fatal. One Karachi mother was very straightforward about the conspiracy that she heard about the vaccination being used to sterilize women and lower the number of Muslims, realizing that such allegations abound on social media. The results have been devastating reported as many parents refuse due to disinformation against vaccines and even go as far as humiliating teams of health workers at their door. These public health workers have been subject to insults and threats, simply because they provide a life-saving vaccine.
High stakes are involved in case of Pakistan as there are about 18000-20000 Pakistani female deaths due to cervical cancer every year and this kind of medicine can prevent majority of these deaths. The fear of a fertility hoax however is leading to drastic stalemate of the program. The change only started recently with direct action, when the health minister of Sindh, publicly got his own daughter vaccinated with HPV vaccine and this resulted in the refusal rates started to decline and the acceptance rate accelerated. However, still a majority of people doubted the authenticity of the vaccine and called this a mere public show to gain trust and sympathy in order to serve Western propaganda. The extent to which disinformation is frail is made evident through this incident, but it also demonstrates the level of damage that few baseless rumors can cause among public.
Rebuilding Trust: A Call to Action
The fight against fake news in Pakistan needs to be fought as hard as false information that threatens human health. Rumors have sabotaged vaccination campaigns, endangered lives and destroyed scientific credibility. The only solution is decisive coordinated action. The country desperately needs real time rumor tracking teams that can disprove rumors and disinformation campaigns before they gain mass hysteria as in past, quick fact-checking by doctors and regulators helped stop hysteria when a viral fake news about a child dying of polio drops in 2022 emerged. Such quick responses should cease being an exception, but become a normal utility in the present times because trust cannot be rebuilt only through television advertisements. Furthermore, re-building confidence must be based on voices that are already credible to people such as religious leaders, teachers and local health workers.
The three crucial components of long-term resilience are media literacy, ability to fact-check and accountability. Trolls and profiteers who weaponize lies should be held accountable as soon as possible since they are operating freely as every delay is followed by fatal outcomes. It is extremely critical to confront falsehoods with clarity, courage and truths in case Pakistan wants to eradicate polio, be able to respond to future pandemics and save the lives of thousands of people with cervical cancer. Liberty of life is at stake and in Pakistan, fake news is not just misleading but it is killing people. Countering it is not optional but it’s a matter of survival.
