ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s week-long anti-polio drive in 79 high-risk districts continued on Tuesday after gunmen shot dead two policemen guarding vaccination teams a day earlier, highlighting the persistent security challenges facing efforts to eradicate the disease.
The attacks took place in the northwestern Bajaur district near the Afghan border on the opening day of the campaign to vaccinate nearly 19 million children in the targeted districts. Security officials said motorcycle-riding militants separately targeted police personnel assigned to protect polio workers.
Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic, alongside neighboring Afghanistan. Efforts to eliminate the disease have long been hindered by militant attacks on vaccination teams and security escorts, as well as parental refusals fueled by misinformation claiming the vaccine is part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
“On the first day of the polio campaign, over 5.68 million children have been vaccinated so far,” Pakistan’s National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) said in a statement on Tuesday.
The NEOC said around 163,000 polio workers were participating in the ongoing door-to-door vaccination campaign, which runs from May 18 to May 24.
In Punjab province, more than 1.7 million children received polio drops on the campaign’s first day, while over 1.89 million children were vaccinated in Sindh, according to official figures.
Authorities said more than 1.41 million children had been vaccinated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where militant violence has resurged in recent years, while over 2.4 million children received vaccines in Balochistan.
More than 140,000 children were vaccinated in Islamabad, the NEOC said.
“Polio is an incurable disease that can permanently disable children,” it said in a statement, urging parents to cooperate with vaccination teams and ensure all children under five receive polio drops.
Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that mainly affects young children and can cause irreversible paralysis. Although there is no cure, repeated doses of the oral vaccine provide effective protection.
Pakistan has intensified immunization campaigns in recent years after reporting a rise in polio cases, particularly in areas affected by militancy, weak health infrastructure and vaccine hesitancy.
