ISLAMABAD: Pakistan began on Monday its last nationwide vaccination campaign for the year to protect 45 million children from polio after a surge in new cases hampered efforts to stop the disease, officials said.
According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the potentially fatal, paralyzing virus hasn’t been stopped,
Pakistan has reported 63 confirmed cases since January.
Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s adviser for the polio eradication program, said the anti-polio drive will continue until Dec. 22.
“As a mother, I am appealing to you to open your doors for health workers,” she said.
Pakistan regularly launches such campaigns despite violence affecting medical personnel who oversee the vaccinations and security forces escorting them. Militants falsely claim that vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Authorities deployed thousands of police officers to protect the health workers following intelligence reports that insurgents could target them. However, gunmen opened fire Monday on police escorting polio workers in Karak, a city in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing a police officer and wounding a health worker, local police official Ayaz Khan said.
More than 200 polio workers and police assigned for their protection have been killed since the 1990s, according to health officials and authorities.
The latest anti-polio drive campaign began a day after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met with medical staff and vowed that Pakistan would win the war against polio.
Afghanistan reported at least 23 confirmed cases in 2024, according to data from the World Health Organization.
In September, the Afghan Taliban suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign in Afghanistan, a devastating setback for polio eradication as the virus is one of the world’s most infectious and any unvaccinated groups of children where the virus is spreading could undo years of progress.
Pakistan begins last anti-polio vaccination campaign of the year after a surge in cases
https://arab.news/8d8pq
Pakistan begins last anti-polio vaccination campaign of the year after a surge in cases
- Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the potentially fatal, paralyzing virus has not been stopped
- Thousands of police officers deployed to protect the health workers following intelligence reports that insurgents could target them
Indonesia reaffirms Yemen’s territorial integrity, backs stability efforts amid tensions
- Statement comes after Saudi Arabia bombed a UAE weapons shipment at Yemeni port city
- Jakarta last week said it ‘appreciates’ Riyadh ‘working together’ with Yemen to restore stability
JAKARTA: Indonesia has called for respect for Yemen’s territorial integrity and commended efforts to maintain stability in the region, a day after Saudi Arabia bombed a weapons shipment from the UAE at a Yemeni port city that Riyadh said was intended for separatist forces.
Saudi Arabia carried out a “limited airstrike” at Yemen’s port city of Al-Mukalla in the southern province of Hadramout on Tuesday, following the arrival of an Emirati shipment that came amid heightened tensions linked to advances by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council in the war-torn country.
In a statement issued late on Wednesday, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “appreciates further efforts by concerned parties to maintain stability and security,” particularly in the provinces of Hadramout and Al-Mahara.
“Indonesia reaffirms the importance of peaceful settlement through an inclusive and comprehensive political dialogue under the coordination of the United Nations and respecting Yemen’s legitimate government and territorial integrity,” Indonesia’s foreign affairs ministry said.
The latest statement comes after Jakarta said last week that it “appreciates the efforts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as other relevant countries, working together with Yemeni stakeholders to de-escalate tensions and restore stability.”
Saudi Arabia leads the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, which includes the UAE and was established in 2015 to combat the Houthi rebels, who control most of northern Yemen.
Riyadh has been calling on the STC, which initially supported Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the Houthi rebels, to withdraw after it launched an offensive against the Saudi-backed government troops last month, seeking an independent state in the south.
Indonesia has also urged for “all parties to exercise restraint and avoid unilateral action that could impact security conditions,” and has previously said that the rising tensions in Yemen could “further deteriorate the security situation and exacerbate the suffering” of the Yemeni people.
Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, maintains close ties with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are its main trade and investment partners in the Middle East.
