PESHAWAR: A polio vaccination team came under fire in northwestern Pakistan's Charsadda district on Monday, leaving one injured.

Health workers accompanied by policemen were administrating polio vaccination drops to children in the Khawaja Was area of Charsadda's Shabqadar tehsil when gunmen opened fire on them.

One of the workers was injured in the shooting and was shifted to the tehsil headquarters hospital.

Despite the latest attack, the polio campaign will continue in the area.

Northwestern Pakistan has seen scores of incidents where polio vaccination teams were attacked with Khyber Agency having the highest number of reported polio cases after the North Waziristan tribal region.

According to data available with Dawn, 96 per cent polio cases so far reported are among the Pashto-speaking population of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata and out of these, residents of North Waziristan Agency's Wazir tribe accounted for 34 per cent of the cases. Earlier in September, KP had reported 25 polio cases for the year with at least five traced back to Fata.

Explore: War on polio: Is it all spiraling out of control for Pakistan?

Fata, which has never been able to vaccinate its targeted population of around nine million since the global polio eradication initiative began in Pakistan in the mid 1990s, has become a real challenge for the government and UN agencies, which are finding it extremely hard to address the issue of reaching unvaccinated children and tackle vaccination refusal cases.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that Pakistan is responsible for nearly 80 per cent of polio cases reported globally.