(Peshawar) A polio coordinator and a police officer protecting the vaccination team were shot dead in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, police said, amid widespread attacks by Islamist militants on vaccination teams.
The attack took place in Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, near the border with Afghanistan, as the team was taking part in a massive campaign to vaccinate 30 million children in 115 districts.
Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world, along with Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic.
On the third day of the campaign, which runs from September 9 to 15, the team reached Salarzai town on Wednesday, the Bajaur police chief said.
As the vaccinators finished their day and were returning to their accommodation centre, two unidentified motorcyclists targeted them, “killing a vaccinator and a police officer responsible for protecting the team, while a second was seriously injured,” he explained.
“200 police officers were deployed to the area to ensure the protection of the polio vaccination teams,” he added.
The campaign will continue in the rest of the district, except in Salarzai.
Polio vaccination faces persistent suspicion in Pakistan, where conspiracy theories abound, including that the vaccines are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children.
In January, seven police officers responsible for protecting polio vaccinators and a coordinator had already been killed in two attacks in the same district.
On Monday, nine people were also lightly injured, six police officers and three civilians, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K) group, while police were transporting a polio vaccination team in South Waziristan, another district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
According to UNICEF, cases of polio, a highly contagious disease caused by a virus that invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis, have fallen dramatically in the country.
But a resurgence of polio has recently hit the country with 17 cases recorded since January compared to six in total in 2023.