ISLAMABAD/QUETTA: A policeman was killed and two people were injured in two separate gun attacks on polio vaccine teams in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Monday, police said, while an anti-virus drive in the southwestern Balochistan region was suspended for a day over security concerns. 

Pakistan on Monday launched its latest nationwide drive to vaccinate 44 million children in 143 districts from Dec. 16-22 amid a surge in polio cases compared to previous years, with the 2024 tally reaching 63 last week. 

Polio is a paralyzing disease that has no cure. Multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five is essential to provide children high immunity against the virus. But Pakistan polio eradication efforts have met with several challenges in recent years, including attacks by militants and misinformation by religious hard-liners.

The first attack on Monday took place in KP’s Karak district, when gunmen riding motorbikes opened fire on a polio vaccination team, killing a policeman who was on guard duty, KP governor’s spokesman Tariq Habib. One vaccinator was also wounded and had been moved to a hospital, he said.

“A large contingent of police reached the spot and cordoned off the area and a search operation has been launched,” Habib said in a statement.

In the Bannu district, Hayatullah Khan, a health official associated with the polio program, was shot by unidentified gunmen after he left home on duty, local police officer Muhammad Ghulam said.

“Khan, who received injuries to his leg, is in stable condition,” Ghulam told Arab News. 

DRIVE POSTPONED IN BALOCHISTAN

In Balochistan province, which has reported the highest number of polio cases this year, 26, the anti-polio drive was postponed by a day due to security reasons, according to a government handout. 

In a notification issued on Sunday night, the provincial home department referred to a “specific threat of sabotage activities” conveyed by the country’s intelligence agencies.

“Consequent to the threat, Law Enforcing Agencies (LEAs) have also restricted their movement and are focused on the neutralization of the threat,” the notification said.

“⁠It will be very difficult to deploy the required security for the anti-polio campaign on 16th December therefore it is requested that to start it from 17th December, 2024.”

Of the 63 polio cases reported in 2024, 26 are from Balochistan, 18 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 17 from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last two countries in the world where polio remains endemic.

Immunization campaigns have succeeded in most countries and have come close in Pakistan, but persistent problems remain. In the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 cases annually but in 2018 the number dropped to eight cases. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.

Pakistan’s chief health officer said last month an estimated 500,000 children had missed polio vaccination during the last countrywide inoculation drive.

Pakistan’s polio program began in 1994 but efforts to eradicate the virus have since been undermined by vaccine misinformation and opposition from some religious hard-liners who say immunization is a foreign ploy to sterilize Muslim children or a cover for Western spies. Militant groups also frequently attack and kill members of polio vaccine teams.

In July 2019, a vaccination drive in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was thwarted after mass panic was created by rumors that children were fainting or vomiting after being immunized. This month, Pakistani authorities postponed a planned anti-polio vaccination campaign in the northwestern Kurram district, citing a fragile security situation after weeks of deadly sectarian clashes in the region.

Public health studies in Pakistan have shown that a lack of knowledge about vaccines, poverty and rural residency are also factors that commonly influence whether parents vaccinate their children against polio. 

Ayesha Raza Farooq, PM Shehbaz Sharif’s focal person on polio eradication, said on Sunday all children up to the age of five must be given polio drops.

“Polio vaccine is completely safe, effective and provided absolutely free of cost,” she said at a ceremony ahead of Monday’s launch of the nationwide campaign.