Gunmen kill Pakistan polio vaccinator and police guard near Afghan border

Islamabad — Gunmen in northwestern Pakistan killed an anti-polio worker and a policeman guarding him Wednesday, the second attack on healthcare teams trying to carry out a national immunization campaign against the paralytic virus.

Area officials reported that the assailants targeted a polio team providing vaccine to children in the Bajaur district, bordering Afghanistan. The attack also injured a policeman. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the deadly attack in one of the militancy-hit districts of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The start of the immunization campaign Monday was marred by a roadside bombing of a polio vaccination team in the province’s South Waziristan district. That attack resulted in injuries to at least ten people, including three vaccinators and six police personnel.  An Afghanistan-based Islamic State affiliate known as Islamic State-Khorasan reportedly claimed responsibility for the deadly blast.   Militants in violence-affected districts often target polio vaccinators, suspecting them of spying on behalf of Pakistani security forces. Such attacks have killed dozens of vaccinators and police personnel escorting them in past years, mostly in areas near or adjacent to the Afghan border, dealing critical blows to polio eradication efforts. On Monday, the Pakistan Polio Eradication Program said that the country of about 240 million is facing an “intense outbreak” of wild poliovirus this year, paralyzing 17 children so far nationwide. It reported that sewage samples tested positive in 66 districts for the highly contagious virus, threatening more children.

The program noted that the ongoing house-to-house campaign aims to vaccinate more than 33 million children under five in 115 districts nationwide. Pakistan and Afghanistan, which reported nine paralytic polio cases so far in 2024, are the only two remaining polio-endemic countries globally. Polio immunization drives in both countries, which share a nearly 2,600-kilometer border, have long faced multiple challenges, such as security and vaccine boycotts, which have set back the goal of eradicating the virus from the globe. Officials at the World Health Organization have reported an improvement in Afghan vaccination efforts since the Islamist Taliban retook control of the country three years ago, ending years of nationwide hostilities and enabling polio teams to inoculate children in previously inaccessible areas..