PESHAWAR: Policemen and health workers continue to face fatal attacks during the door-to-door vaccination campaigns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has recorded 20 such deaths and 18 polio cases this year alone.

Health officials told Dawn that attacks of polio workers and their police guards in the province began in 2012, claiming 112 lives and injuring over 300 people to date.

They said this year alone, 20 people had been killed and 53 injured during anti-polio campaigns in the province.

The officials said the deceased included 16 policemen, three polio workers and one civilian, while among the injured were 43 policemen and two vaccinators.

Officials insist workers unwilling to be part of anti-polio teams in many southern areas

They also said two people were kidnapped in polio-related incidents this year.

The officials said the assailants, who targeted vaccinators and their police escorts, carried out attacks while riding motorcycles and fled.

According to health officials, the polio eradication programme has been paying Rs1 million each to the families of those losing lives during polio campaigns.

They said policemen also got compensation under the Shuhada Package in addition to the amount paid by the polio programme.

The officials said the health workers who were government employees also got Shuhada Package payments but volunteers or those working as daily wagers received Rs1 million only.

They said that killing of polio workers and policemen guarding them had become a serious issue as they were targeted by alleged terrorists in every house-to-house campaign.

The officials said miscreants had attacked polio teams in almost every district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, so fear gripped polio workers who often succumbed to pressure from parents to declare their children vaccinated without being given polio drops.

They said the health workers resorted to fake finger markings of targeted children due to threats.

The officials said as per protocol, vaccinators marked the finger of the children as a proof of vaccination.

They however said the finger marking had become a “headache” for authorities who thought that all children had been inoculated but in reality, scores of them stayed unvaccinated.

The officials said the biggest fatal incident of the current year happened in Bajaur tribal district in which Dr Abdur Rehman, father of 10 children, along with six policemen was killed in a roadside bomb attack.

They said they were informally told by police that terrorists involved in the Bajaur attack had been arrested, while the killer of workers in Bannu had been eliminated, but there was nothing on record.

The officials said those violent incidents had been demoralising health workers, who were scared of reporting the parents, who wanted fake finger marking of their children.

They added that once that fear factor was addressed, the fake finger marking would not happen, enabling the health department to get a clear picture of vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

The officials said in many southern areas, the situation was extremely bad as the people hesitated to be part of vaccination teams.

They said that chief secretary Nadeem Afzal Chaudhry, in meetings of the provincial task force on polio, had repeatedly directed the deputy commissioners, district police officers and district health officers to attend the polio-related meetings before and during the campaigns to know about issues and resolve them accordingly, but all those directives seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2024