Islamabad: Pakistan’s drive to vaccinate school-aged girls against cervical cancer has suffered serious setbacks, with fewer than one in five girls aged 9 to 14 years receiving the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine so far, officials and vaccinators disclosed today citing the seven days vaccination coverage data.
Even in the federal capital, home to some of the country’s most educated citizens, coverage remains stuck at around 16 percent, underscoring how misinformation and distrust have overwhelmed the campaign.
Senior epidemiologists, infectious disease experts and biological scientists blame the setbacks on a poor communication strategy, diversion of funds into ineffective advertising, and the outsourcing of advocacy to inexperienced firms that failed to win parents’ confidence. Instead of engaging communities and countering rumors head-on, authorities relied on surface-level promotion that left damaging conspiracy theories unchecked.
Officials admitted that the real vaccination figure is likely even lower than reported, as some teams manipulated data to show inflated success. “The reality is that less than 20 percent of girls have been vaccinated and shockingly, many vaccinators and their supervisors did not administer the vaccine to their own daughters,” one health expert said.
The Federal Directorate of Immunization (FDI) and the provincial Expanded Programmes on Immunization (EPIs) of Sindh and Punjab have also been criticized for failing to highlight key facts about the vaccine being used.
The vaccine deployed in Pakistan is Innovax, manufactured by a major Chinese biotechnology company and prequalified by the World Health Organization. Despite its global recognition as safe and effective, health authorities did little to communicate these credentials, allowing suspicions to spread unchecked.
No professional behavior change specialists or crisis communication experts were engaged to prepare the ground before the rollout. Instead, officials scrambled to contain backlash once hesitancy was already widespread. Even the bold move by Federal Health Minister Syed Mustafa Kamal, who vaccinated his own daughter in front of cameras in Karachi, drew skepticism at home, with many parents dismissing it as mere optics despite global praise.
Prof. Faisal Mehmood, infectious disease expert at Aga Khan University Hospital, said the problem reflects global trends but has been amplified in Pakistan by mistrust of institutions and unchecked social media misinformation. “I don’t think this is country-specific. Anti-vaccine drives are common throughout the world and are multifactorial. But the general mistrust in the government and healthcare system plays an important role here, amplified by social media,” he said.
He noted that campaigns like HPV vaccination require pre-launch awareness and demand-generation efforts. “When a company launches a product there is marketing behind it. Unfortunately, in this campaign, awareness only came after the rollout, so it feels like damage control. In polio, they now do pre-campaign activities, which is good. But with HPV, we assumed people would listen to healthcare workers and think logically. Neither assumption is true,” he added.
Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar, a senior epidemiologist and former FDI official, said routine immunization is widely accepted in Pakistan but specific campaigns like polio and HPV remain vulnerable to conspiracy theories. “Whatever comes free of cost is viewed as a western agenda. Despite massive spending, social and behavioral change communication remains weak, poorly targeted, and often mismanaged. Communities exploit vaccination drives to push their demands, and misinformation thrives, especially on social media,” he said.
He added that literacy gaps and limited health-seeking behavior play a role, but the deeper challenge is the politicization of health campaigns. “Polio eradication has already become a geopolitical battleground. HPV risks going the same way,” he warned.
Prof. Shahana Urooj Kazmi, President of the Pakistan Society of Microbiology and a leading biological scientist who supervised PhDs on HPV and cervical cancer, called the HPV rollout a “mismanaged campaign” that skipped vital steps. “No proper awareness sessions were organized to explain the seriousness of HPV infection in both males and females. You cannot just send orders to schools for vaccinating students. There should have been at least a month-long awareness campaign first,” she said.
She stressed that resistance was inevitable when such an expensive vaccine was introduced abruptly without prior public engagement. “Bulldozing vaccination for all girls aged 9 to 14 years without building trust only fuels opposition,” she added.
Public health experts now argue that Pakistan must urgently recalibrate its HPV strategy, bringing in social mobilization professionals, community leaders and medical practitioners to regain parents’ trust. Without meaningful engagement, they warn, misinformation will continue to overshadow science and millions of Pakistani girls will remain at risk of a cancer that is entirely preventable.
Ends