Second policeman killed in KPK while guarding polio team in two days

NOWSHERA: Militants killed a police officer guarding polio vaccination workers in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, police said, in the second such attack in as many days.

Pakistan is one of two countries, along with Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic, but militants have killed hundreds of police officers and health workers over the past decade as part of a campaign against the Pakistani state.

The policeman was killed in Nowshera district, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on the third day of a nationwide anti-polio campaign targeting 45 million children.

“Two armed militants targeted a police officer assigned to protect a polio team,” local police official Bilal Khan told AFP. “He was killed on the spot,” Khan added.

The polio team remained safe, according to the police.

Wednesday’s attack was claimed by a militant group called Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, a local offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan recorded a surge in polio cases last year, with 74 infections reported, compared to just six in 2023.

So far this year, 29 polio cases have been recorded, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounting for 18 cases, the highest in the country.

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Polio, a highly infectious virus mainly affecting children under five, can result in lifelong paralysis but is easily prevented by the oral administration of a few drops of a vaccine.

There is a raft of misinformation circulating about the vaccine in rural Pakistan, including that it is a CIA plot to stop Muslims from having children.

The attack comes a month after the government rolled out an HPV vaccination drive to protect Pakistani girls from cervical cancer, which was plagued by misinformation.