Policeman Shot Dead at the Anti-Polio Campaign in Pakistan
Vaccination teams are targeted by militants who oppose the drives, claiming the polio drops cause infertility.
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Unidentified gunmen shot dead a policeman escorting a team of polio workers in Peshawar, northwest Pakistan on 23 April, Tuesday, a day after a nation-wide campaign was launched against the crippling disease that is still endemic in the country.
Several school students in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province reportedly fell ill and were taken to hospital on Monday after being given anti-polio drops during a country-wide campaign aimed to administer anti-polio drops to 39 million children under five years of age.
Dozens of students of schools in Mashokhel in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa were rushed for medical attention because they felt unwell after being administered the polio vaccine, the Express Tribune reported.
Pakistan is one of the three countries, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio is still endemic.
The team was administering oral polio drops to children at Bacha Khan Chowk in Bannu district bordering north Waziristan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, they said.
The police said that the gunmen fled from the scene after killing the policeman on duty.
More than 260,000 polio workers have been deployed to administer the anti-polio vaccines to children in all four provinces of Pakistan, as well as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
In spite of these efforts, Pakistan has not been able to completely eradicate polio. Six cases of polio have been reported so far in 2019. While twelve cases were reported in 2018 and eight in 2017.
Attempts to eliminate the crippling disease have been seriously hampered by deadly targeting of vaccination teams in the recent years by militants, who oppose the drives, claiming the polio drops cause infertility.
Earlier this month, a member of a polio monitoring team was gunned down on Monday by a man after a verbal brawl during a campaign at a village near Pak-Afghan border.
The national coordinator of the polio eradication programme, Rana Safdar urged people to cooperate with polio teams to administer the drops to their children to fight against this crippling disease.
In January 2014, three workers were killed while in late 2012, five workers including four female workers were killed in Qayyumabad area in Karachi.
(With inputs from PTI)
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