Unfazed by terror threats, Pak begins fresh anti-polio drive

Unfazed by continuing militant threats to polio vaccination teams, thousands of Pakistani health workers are participating in three-day anti-polio campaign that began today in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
As many as 3.44 million children under the age of five would be vaccinated against polio during the anti-polio campaign launched in 13 districts of the province, including Peshawar, Swat, Hangu and Kohat.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic.
Pakistan's polio cases are declining, with just 54 cases of wild polio virus reported last year, down more than 80 per cent from 2014.

"Successful efforts are being made to eradicate polio and it has resulted in marked decrease in polio cases in the province as compared to previous years," said Emergency Operation Centre coordinator Akbar Khan.
A total of 10029 teams have been constituted comprising 19,256 vaccinators and 2,101 Area Incharges to reach out to the target population, he added.

He said that teams have been given special training to cope with the programmatic challenges and to successfully achieve the target.
Moreover, he said that special security measures have been taken to ensure security cover to the teams and smooth running of the campaign.

Polio workers have long been targeted in the country by Islamist groups including the Taliban militants which claim that the polio immunisation drive is a front for espionage or a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims.
The attacks on polio health workers intensified after a Pakistani doctor was arrested on charges of running a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad as a cover for a CIA-backed effort to obtain DNA samples from Osama bin Laden ahead of the 2011 US raid that killed him.
The most recent deadly attack came in January when at least 15 people, mostly security officials, were killed and over 20 others injured when a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up outside a polio vaccination centre in restive Balochistan's capital Quetta.