PESHAWAR-
Three people including two Levies personnel were injured when a polio eradication team vehicle was targeted in a bomb attack in Bajur Agency on Wednesday.
According to political administration of the area, Levies men deployed for the security of the polio team and their driver sustained injuries in the attack at Dabur in Mohmand area of the Agency.
The members of polio team remained unhurt.
The injured were shifted to the hospital and a search operation was launched in the area.
As of this month, the number of new polio cases in Pakistan stands at 210 and the country is bracing for potentially dozens of other cases by year’s end. Pakistan now accounts for 80 percent of global cases and is one of only three countries at risk of exporting the disease outside its borders, according to the World Health Organization.
Yet the sad truth is that we saw another attack on polio team in Northern Pakistan today. Earlier this week the militants in FATA and Khyber Agency had declared the polio vaccination drive anti-Islamic and warned polio workers of dire consequences if they try to administer polio drops to children of their area. This is ridiculous; they are not only putting the children of the area at risk, but children all over. “It’s an emergency, a public health emergency,” said Ayesha Raza Farooq, the polio eradication coordinator for Pakistan’s government. “We want to limit the virus outside of our boundaries and want to work to control it in our boundaries, but it’s certainly a very challenging situation ahead.”
The World Health Organization and USAID, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are working hard to curtail and eradicate polio from Pakistan. It is unfortunate that the terrorists are hampering the efforts with their attacks on polio teams. There are already travel restrictions placed on Pakistanis travelling overseas because of the polio virus. Aziz Memon, chairman of the Pakistan PolioPlus Committee, said, “Polio is no longer an emergency. This has become an outbreak.” Memon said, “The government needs to take full ownership. . . and it needs to be done on a war footing.”
Abdul Quddus
DET – U.S. Central Command
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