Los Angeles Times: This boy could be one of the world’s last victims of polio
“…The narrow Sheltan valley [in Afghanistan], a haven for the Taliban and other insurgents along the border with Pakistan, is also one of the world’s last redoubts for the crippling childhood disease. There have been 32 polio cases worldwide this year — four in Nigeria, 16 in Pakistan, and 12 in Afghanistan. Of the Afghan cases, four … are from this half-a-square-mile cluster of farming villages, home to about 1,000 people. From 2012 until this summer, the threat of violence and the anti-Western policies of insurgents prevented health teams from entering the valley to vaccinate children, the only way to stop the virus’s spread…” (Bengali, 11/10).