KHAR (Bajaur Agency), Aug 7: A nationwide polio vaccination campaign was suspended in Bajaur Agency on Tuesday after health workers were detained and beaten up by armed people in the Charmang area, officials said.

Sources said a team sent by the health directorate was administering polio drops to children in the Babara Ziarat village of Charmang near the Afghan border when it came under attack. The assailants manhandled the health workers and damaged vaccine kits. The health workers later said they had been kept hostage for more than four hours. After the attack, the administration suspended the vaccination campaign in the area for an indefinite period, Dr Cheragh Din, the agency’s surgeon, said.

Some elements have been opposing polio vaccination saying it makes recipients sterile. A similar campaign was suspended in July last year after opposition from these elements. A few months ago, an agency surgeon was killed in a remote village in the agency where he had gone to persuade people to get their children vaccinated.

AFP adds: Health officials have been trying to dispel rumours – sometimes spread by radio stations or from loudspeakers of mosques – that the polio campaign was a western conspiracy to reduce Muslim populations.

WHO officials have said they still face difficulties gaining access to what they regard as ‘high-risk’ tribal areas, including North Waziristan, Bajaur and Khyber. Pakistan, one of the only four countries where polio is still endemic, launched a nationwide vaccination drive on Tuesday aiming to inoculate 32 million children against the disease.