The number of victims of the attacks on the police who ensured the security of the team of doctors during the campaign to vaccinate children from poliomyelitis in Pakistan has increased to seven people.
The attack was undertaken on the eve of the Bajaur region of the Haiber-Pakhtunhvy province located near the border with Afghanistan.
According to local media, another wounded police officer died in the hospital. Another 22 wounded police officers are treated, the condition of three of them is critical.
The responsibility for the terrorist attack was taken by the Pakistani movement of the Taliban (TTP), which often organizes attacks on doctors conducting polio vaccination. The militants believe that “Western countries use vaccination to sterilize children.”
as part of a campaign to combat polio, begun in 1994, Pakistan reduced the average annual number of cases of the disease from an average of 20 thousand per year to 8 in 2017.
After 2017, Pakistan had an increase in cases of poliomyelitis. In 2018, 12 cases were revealed, in 2019 – 147 and in 2020 – 84 cases of the disease. In 2022, 20 were revealed in the country, and in 2023 – 6 cases of polio disease.
According to the World Health Organization, polio, children under the age of 5 years are infected mainly. In one of 200 infected ones, irreversible paralysis develops. In 5-10 percent of cases, paralysis leads to death due to the advancing paralysis of the respiratory muscles.