ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan began Monday a weeklong second nationwide vaccination campaign aimed at protecting 45 million children from polio, officials said.
According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the potentially fatal, paralyzing virus hasn’t been stopped,
Since January, Pakistan has reported only six polio cases. Last year, the South Asian country witnessed a surge in polio cases, which jumped to 74, though it reported only one polio case in 2021.
Pakistan’s Health Minister, Mustafa Kamal, has urged parents to cooperate with the medical staff, who visit door-to-door to vaccinate children.
Health workers are often attacked by militants who falsely claim that vaccination efforts are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children.
Since the 1990s, more than 200 polio workers and the police assigned to protect them have been killed in attacks.
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