Pakistan begins 2nd anti-polio vaccination campaign of the year to protect millions of children

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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan began Monday a weeklong second nationwide vaccination campaign aimed at protecting 45 million children from polio, officials said.

According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the potentially fatal, paralyzing virus hasn’t been stopped,

Since January, Pakistan has reported only six polio cases. Last year, the South Asian country witnessed a surge in polio cases, which jumped to 74, though it reported only one polio case in 2021.

Pakistan’s Health Minister, Mustafa Kamal, has urged parents to cooperate with the medical staff, who visit door-to-door to vaccinate children.

Health workers are often attacked by militants who falsely claim that vaccination efforts are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children.

On Monday, police killed a militant when he opened fire on officers assigned to protect health workers on the polio drive in Azam Warsak, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to local police chief, Alamgir Mahsud. He said all the officers were unharmed.

Since the 1990s, more than 200 polio workers and the police assigned to protect them have been killed in attacks.