On Monday, January 8, a Pakistani police car carrying safety personnel defending polio vaccination marketing campaign employees within the northwestern province was hit by a roadside bomb, killing six law enforcement officials and injuring 10 others, in response to Associated Press.
The assault occurred within the Mamond district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, close to the Afghan border, and the injured officers have been taken to a authorities hospital with important circumstances, stated Kashif Zulfikar, a Pakistani police official.
Extremist terrorists usually goal vaccination campaigns in Pakistan, claiming they’re a Western “conspiracy” to sterilize youngsters, and nobody has claimed accountability for Monday’s assault.
Following the explosion, the vaccination marketing campaign within the space was halted, however workers are protected and the method will proceed in different elements of the nation, in response to Zulfikar.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are the one nations the place polio instances are reported, and the World Health Organization has warned concerning the danger of outbreaks on account of numerous youngsters being disadvantaged of vaccination applications.
In Pakistan, there was a rise within the variety of optimistic polio samples, with a big variety of instances reported in main cities corresponding to Quetta, Karachi, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, and Islamabad.
The World Health Organization has recognized political instability, insecurity, and vaccination bans as obstacles to eradicating polio in provinces like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan.
While Pakistan has made progress in direction of polio eradication, the group has additionally warned concerning the elevated danger of outbreak in Afghanistan as a result of return of Afghan refugees.