No fewer than two persons have been confirmed dead after unidentified assailants attacked a polio vaccination team in northwestern region of Pakistan.
The victims were one of the workers handing out doses and a policeman escorting him.
The attack in the region bordering Afghanistan comes two days after Pakistan launched its latest national campaign to stamp out the virus.
Furthermore, the virus still poses a health threat in the South Asian nation, although it has been mostly eradicated elsewhere.
“Unidentified armed men opened fire on a polio vaccination team in a subdivision of Bajaur tribal district as they were on a vaccination campaign,” district police officer Waqas Rafique said.
In response to the attack, a local police union group called for a strike by policemen and a boycott of security duties for the vaccination campaign in the Bajaur district following the killing of their colleague.”
However, no group has claimed responsibility, but previously, Islamist militant groups in the region have claimed similar attacks on polio teams, falsely portraying the inoculation campaigns as a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Pakistan began its latest national campaign earlier this week, aiming to administer the vaccine to up to 30 million children, the prime minister’s office said.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world still struggling to eradicate polio.
