PESHAWAR: A three-day anti-polio campaign has been launched in nine districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with the financial assistance of Saudi Arabia.
The campaign has been launched in the province at a time when the Pakistan army has launched a military operation named as ‘Zarb-e-Azb’ against the militants in the North Waziristan tribal region.
Now it may become difficult for the concerned authorities to carry on the polio drive if the military operation is expanded to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or the militants conduct any terror attack in the province in response to the operation in North Waziristan.
In the past also, teams which were assigned the duty of administering polio drops to the children in various parts of the country especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal areal have several times been targeted by the militants.
The districts where the campaign has been launched in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa include Peshawar, Charsadda, Swabi, Mardan, Nowshera, Bannu, Kohat, Tank and Dera Ismail Khan.
The children of displaced people from the North Waziristan tribal region are also being administered the anti-polio vaccine.
Pakistan is among three countries where the crippling virus is endemic; the other two are Afghanistan and Nigeria.
Last month, the WHO imposed strict travel restrictions on Pakistan due to increasing cases of polio in the country, making it mandatory for Pakistani citizens to carry a polio vaccination certificate during foreign travel.
