Daily Times

Two policemen were martyred in a gun attack on a polio vaccination team in Quetta’s suburban area of Kili Nawa, police said on Tuesday, the first day of the immunisation drive in Balochistan.

Extremist outfits have repeatedly targeted polio teams administering the crucial drops to children, with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) also being involved in the attacks.

Police said that the volunteers – two women – in the polio vaccination teams remained safe but both the cops deployed at their security died on the spot. Taking notice of the unfortunate incident, Balochistan Chief Minister Abdul Quddus Bizenjo condemned the attack and expressed grief over the martyrdom of the policemen.

The chief minister termed the incident a conspiracy against the healthy future of the children.

“Anti-national elements want to fail the polio campaign to fulfill their evil ambitions,” he said while seeking a report on the matter.

He directed the authorities concerned to utilise all the available resources to catch the culprits involved in the attack.

It may be noted that Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world that have still not achieved complete eradication of the disease. In another bid for polio eradication, the government launched the anti-polio virus vaccination drive in Balochistan on Tuesday, targeting over 2.5 million children to be immunised against the disease. Over 11,500 teams are part of the vaccination drive which will continue for a week, while provision of security has also been ensured.

The government has appealed to the religious scholars, parents, teachers, and non-governmental organisations to play their role in making this drive a success.

Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that mainly affects children under the age of five. It invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis or even death. While there is no cure for polio, vaccination is the only effective way to protect children from the crippling disease.

Every time children under the age of five get the polio vaccine, they are more protected. Such repeated immunizations have protected millions of children from polio and made most of countries around the world polio-free. A senior Unicef official said in December 2022 the polio programme in Pakistan was back on track and hoped that the crippling disease would be eradicated from the country by the end of 2023 following effective measures taken to check its spread.