ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday launched a week-long anti-polio vaccination campaign in 115 districts across Pakistan, Sharif’s office said, amid an outbreak of the virus in the South Asian country.
Pakistan has reported 17 cases of polio virus so far this year, with the last one reported in Islamabad this week, according to the national polio program. It was the first human case reported in Islamabad in 16 years.
In view of the “intense outbreak,” authorities decided to launch a nationwide inoculation campaign, aiming to vaccinate 30 million children under the age of five against the debilitating disease.
Under the campaign, which will formally begin on Monday and continue till Sept. 15, around 286,000 anti-polio vaccinators will go door-to-door to administer the vaccine.
“Parents are requested to have children under five years of age administered polio vaccine drops to protect them from a lifelong disability,” Sharif said at the campaign launch in Islamabad.
He expressed gratitude to Pakistan’s partners and international organizations for cooperating with his government in efforts to eliminate the virus.
“I am hopeful that the federal government will succeed in the complete elimination of polio from the country in collaboration with provincial governments and its partners,” Sharif said.
Pakistan earlier this year reported 12 polio cases from Balochistan, three from Sindh and one from Punjab.
Polio has been eliminated in developed nations but persists in parts of India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has recently been reported in Gaza.
Many Pakistanis, particularly those residing in the conservative tribal areas, consider polio vaccination a Western campaign aimed at sterilizing the country’s population. In 2012, the local Taliban had ordered a ban on immunization against polio in some tribal districts.
Nearly a dozen policemen have been killed this year while on security duty during vaccination campaigns, which are frequently targeted by militants.
Pakistan PM launches week-long anti-polio drive in 115 districts amid virus outbreak
https://arab.news/gz4ch
Pakistan PM launches week-long anti-polio drive in 115 districts amid virus outbreak
- Polio has been eliminated in developed nations but persists in parts of India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan
- Pakistan has reported 12 polio cases from Balochistan, three from Sindh and one each from Punjab and Islamabad
No casualties as blast derails Jaffar Express train in Pakistan’s south
- Passengers were stranded and railway staffers were clearing the track after blast, official says
- In March 2025, separatist militants hijacked the same train with hundreds of passengers aboard
QUETTA: A blast hit Jaffar Express and derailed four carriages of the passenger train in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Monday, officials said, with no casualties reported.
The blast occurred at the Abad railway station when the Peshawar-bound train was on its way to Sindh’s Sukkur city from Quetta, according to Pakistan Railways’ Quetta Division controller Muhammad Kashif.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, but passenger trains have often been targeted by Baloch separatist outfits in the restive Balochistan province that borders Sindh.
“Four bogies of the train were derailed due to the intensity of the explosion,” Kashif told Arab News. “No casualty was reported in the latest attack on passenger train.”
Another railway employee, who was aboard the train and requested anonymity, said the train was heading toward Sukkur from Jacobabad when they heard the powerful explosion, which derailed power van among four bogies.
“A small piece of the railway track has been destroyed,” he said, adding that passengers were now standing outside the train and railway staffers were busy clearing the track.
In March last year, fighters belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) separatist group had stormed Jaffar Express with hundreds of passengers on board and took them hostage. The military had rescued them after an hours-long operation that left 33 militants, 23 soldiers, three railway staff and five passengers dead.
The passenger train, which runs between Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta and Peshawar in the country’s northwest, had been targeted in at least four bomb attacks last year since the March hijacking, according to an Arab News tally.
Pakistan Railways says it has beefed up security arrangements for passenger trains in the province and increased the number of paramilitary troops on Jaffar Express since the hijacking in March, but militants have continued to target them in the restive region.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s southwestern province that borders Iran and Afghanistan, is the site of a decades-long insurgency waged by Baloch separatist groups who often attack security forces and foreigners, and kidnap government officials.
The separatists accuse the central government of stealing the region’s resources to fund development elsewhere in the country. The Pakistani government denies the allegations and says it is working for the uplift of local communities in Balochistan.
