Gunmen attack anti-polio team in Pakistan; kill three, says police

The gunmen attacked the team while it was on a door-to door anti-polio vaccination drive after nine new cases were reported this year in the district

Three people, including two policemen, escorting an anti-polio vaccination team, were killed when unidentified assailants attacked them in Pakistan's restive north Waziristan tribal district on Tuesday, police said.

The gunmen attacked the team, killing one of its members and two policemen escorting them, while it was on a door-to door anti-polio vaccination drive after nine new cases were reported this year in the district that borders Afghanistan.

The police started an investigation into the killings.

No group has claimed responsibility yet for the attack.

Attacks on workers of the anti-polio vaccination drives in Pakistan have increased in recent times.

In March this year, gunmen in northwestern Pakistan shot and killed a female polio worker as she was returning home after taking part in the country's latest anti-polio campaign.

In January last year, armed gunmen shot dead a police officer guarding a team of polio vaccine handlers in northwestern Pakistan.

Pakistan, along with Afghanistan, remains the last polio-endemic countries in the world, according to the World Health Organisation.

Recently, Pakistan's vaccination programme has come under scrutiny after the detection of poliovirus in sewage samples in London for the first time in four decades.

Health authorities in Islamabad claim the vaccine-derived virus found in the UK exists in 22 countries and the type found locally was the wild poliovirus (WPV).

Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme National Coordinator Dr Shahzad Baig told the Dawn newspaper on Thursday that it was too early to say the virus had travelled from Pakistan, as UK authorities were yet to announce the results of genome sequencing.

Pakistan in May this year launched a nationwide anti-polio drive to vaccinate more than 43 million children after the cases of the crippling virus surfaced in the country.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif inaugurated the second polio campaign of the year 2022 at the Prime Minister's house and assured that the government would take all measures to eradicate the crippling disease.