PESHAWAR: A gun attack on a polio vaccination team in Pakistan’s northwestern Bajaur district killed a police constable and a civilian on Tuesday, prompting authorities to suspend vaccination activities in the area, officials said.
The attack took place in a small settlement of Bajaur’s Salarzai tehsil, near the Afghan border, where militants have targeted health workers and security personnel involved in polio campaigns in the past despite police escorts assigned to protect vaccination teams.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio remains endemic, and vaccination drives have frequently been disrupted by militant violence, misinformation and vaccine hesitancy.
Authorities routinely deploy police and paramilitary forces to guard polio teams, but attacks have continued in recent years.
“The incident occurred at approximately 12:20 p.m. in Village Tangi Loei Khel, UC Khar 2, when unidentified individuals opened fire on Constable Sajjad, killing him on the spot,” said Shadab Younas, a media officer at the Peshawar Emergency Operations Center.
