An attack occurred just hours after the first polio vaccination campaign of the new year was launched in Pakistan. At least five police officers protecting vaccination workers were killed when a bomb exploded next to their vehicle. More than twenty other people were injured.
According to a police spokesperson, the attack on the vaccination teams took place in the northwest of the country, near the Afghan border. According to police, the bomb exploded on the side of the road next to the security forces van. Vaccination staff were not injured.
Deadly rejection of vaccinations
In Pakistan, there are repeated, sometimes fatal, attacks on vaccination workers and the security forces who protect them. Polio vaccinations are seen by some Islamist militants as a Western tool to sterilize Muslims.
No one initially claimed responsibility for the attack; the Taliban have claimed responsibility for attacks in the past. Pakistan is struggling with the rise of radical Islamists, who carry out attacks mainly in the border area with Afghanistan.
Vaccination campaign interrupted
According to authorities, the vaccination campaign in the area where the bombing took place has been temporarily halted. But it also continues in other parts of the country.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries in the world where the polio pathogen is still endemic, meaning infections occur continuously and frequently. Six cases were registered last year, almost all in the northwest of the country, where many parents refuse to vaccinate their children against the virus that causes polio.
Source: Krone
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