Daily Times

Three people including two policemen were killed and one injured on Tuesday in attack on polio team in North Waziristan, police confirmed.

In the surrounding of Tang Kalli tehsil Dattakhel, unknown assailants opened fire and killed two policemen and one polio worker while one civilian got injured. The deceased were identified as police constable Raza Ullah resident of Darri Wasta tehsil Dattakhel, police constable Din Shaheed resident of Kani Rogha Manzar Khel tehsil Dattakhel and polio worker Rsheed Ullah son of Bismillah Khan resident of Tang Kalli tehsil Dattakhel while the other injured was not identified.

The police and security forces cordoned off the area and started investigation to arrest the culprits.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Tuesday condoled over the killing of three security personnel deputed with the polio vaccination team in Tank.

On Twitter, the prime minister asked the interior minister to submit report on the incident before the next cabinet meeting. He also prayed for peace of the departed soul and strength to bereaved families to bear the loss.

The second Sub-National Immunisation Days (SNIDs) campaign this year began on Monday aiming to vaccinate 12.6 million children in all four provinces. Under the campaign, covering 25 very high-risk districts for poliovirus, children under the age of five will be vaccinated. Over 100,000 trained health workers have been engaged in the drive to inoculate children at their doorstep.

Eleven cases of polio have so far been reported in the country this year compared to only one in 2021. All the 11 cases were reported from North Waziristan.

The emergency committee under the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) on the international spread of poliovirus has recently expressed concern over the outbreak of Wild Polio Virus (WPV) in the North Waziristan district. It stated that risks to the rest of Pakistan escalated with the ongoing WPV circulation in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

“The key challenges that hampered progress in southern KP include the complex security situation, specifically in North and South Waziristan, which resulted in inadequate access, missed children and reduced quality of campaigns,” it said. Besides, it noted that community resistance with refusals to vaccination, lack of female frontline workers, and weak health infrastructure and service delivery all posed challenges.

“All WPV cases reported in 2022 are zero dose for routine immunisation, zero dose or under-immunised in supplementary immunisation activities (SIAs), and are from refusal families. Another challenge in South KP is the sub-optimal Routine Immunisation (RI) and progress on strengthening RI in South KP is slow,” it added.