THE numbers speak for themselves. Out of 47 total cases of polio so far recorded in Pakistan this year, North Waziristan accounts for 33, an unsurprising, if tragic, outcome of the ban imposed on vaccinations in the area by the TTP since 2012. Meanwhile, South Waziristan has recorded two cases, Khyber one and Bannu two indicating the spread of the virus in contiguous areas and beyond.

Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary measures, and the looming threat of a polio epidemic in the country certainly qualifies as such a situation. It is against this backdrop that the army has offered to help the government in its efforts to eradicate polio by providing security to health workers while they conduct vaccination drives in the militancy-affected tribal areas of North and South Waziristan, and the Bara tehsil of Khyber, to try and prevent the disease from transmission further afield.

The consequences of failure could not be more dire: the WHO has already declared Peshawar the world’s largest reservoir of endemic polio with more than 90pc of current polio cases in the country genetically linked to strains in that city.

While it is unfortunate that the local administration through its civilian law-enforcement agencies has been unable to address the challenges to the polio eradication campaign in the tribal areas, the reality is that in that hostile terrain, the army alone has the logistical capability to undertake the task of providing security to the health workers in a coordinated manner.

Even in other parts of the country, where there is a proper administrative set-up, polio vaccination teams and police personnel providing them security have repeatedly come under attack, and a considerable number have lost their lives.

Any strategy that can achieve results must be employed. Pakistan is one of three polio-endemic countries in the world — the others being Afghanistan and Nigeria — and the only one where the disease is gathering steam rather than being on the decline. There is not a moment to lose.