ISLAMABAD: A policeman was killed and an anti-polio vaccinator injured in a gun attack in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, police said on Monday, as the South Asian country launched an anti-polio drive to reach 44 million children.
Polio is a paralyzing disease that has no cure. Multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five is essential to provide children high immunity against this terrible disease.
The attack took place in KP’s Karak district, when unidentified gunmen riding motorbikes opened fire on an anti-polio vaccination team, according to KP governor’s spokesman Tariq Habib. The deceased policeman, Mohammad Irfan, was guarding the vaccinators. The body and the injured vaccinator were shifted to hospital.
“A large contingent of police reached the spot and cordoned off the area and a search operation has been launched there,” Habib said in a statement.
Pakistan is responding to an intense resurgence of Wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) this year, with 63 cases reported so far. Of these, 26 are from Balochistan, 18 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 17 from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif launched the vaccination campaign, which will continue till Dec. 22. During the drive, polio vaccinators will go house to house in 143 districts to immunize children under the age of five years, according to the polio program.
“Polio is a dangerous disease which can cripple your children for life. In fact, it can be life-threatening,” Sharif said at the campaign launch. “Only two drops [of anti-polio vaccine] can save your children from being disabled forever. Come and let’s protect the future of our and the nation’s children.”
He said the federation and all provinces were jointly fighting this epidemic and God willing, they would eliminate the disease through their collective wisdom and efforts, thanking vaccinators for their efforts to eliminate the virus despite harsh weather and terrain in far-flung areas.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last two countries in the world where polio remains endemic.
Immunization campaigns have succeeded in most countries and have come close in Pakistan, but persistent problems remain. In the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 cases annually but in 2018 the number dropped to eight cases. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.
Pakistan’s chief health officer said on Nov. 10 an estimated 500,000 children had missed polio vaccination during the last countrywide inoculation drive.
Pakistan’s polio program began in 1994 but efforts to eradicate the virus have since been undermined by vaccine misinformation and opposition from some religious hard-liners who say immunization is a foreign ploy to sterilize Muslim children or a cover for Western spies. Militant groups also frequently attack and kill members of polio vaccine teams.
In July 2019, a vaccination drive in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was thwarted after mass panic was created by rumors that children were fainting or vomiting after being immunized. This month, Pakistani authorities postponed a planned anti-polio vaccination campaign in the northwestern Kurram district, citing a fragile security situation after weeks of deadly sectarian clashes in the region.
Public health studies in Pakistan have shown that a lack of knowledge about vaccines, poverty and rural residency are also factors that commonly influence whether parents vaccinate their children against polio.
Ayesha Raza Farooq, PM Sharif’s focal person on polio eradication, said on Sunday that all children up to the age of five must be given polio drops.
“Polio vaccine is completely safe, effective and provided absolutely free of cost,” she added.
 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities took significant steps to counter terror financing and completed an updated National Risk Assessment (NRA), which included terror financing components, in 2023, the United States (US) State Department said this week.

The South Asian country continued to face significant money-laundering and terrorist financing risks last year, the State Department noted in its country report for 2023 issued last week.

Pakistan assessed 87 militant organizations and conducted a sectoral vulnerability assessment, which revealed that 41 militant organizations had been active in the country with varying degrees of operations.

“The assessment also identified donations and extortion as key sources for terrorist financing, with cash/cash couriers and illegal money or value transfer services as the most common channels, noting that Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan was an important contextual challenge,” the report read. 

“Pakistan disseminated the assessment to relevant law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders, directing them to implement policy and operational priorities.”

In 2022, Pakistan was removed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global anti-money laundering and anti-terror financing watchdog, from a list of countries under “increased monitoring” for terror financing, following years of rigorous efforts by Pakistani authorities.

FATF added Pakistan to the list in June 2018. The South Asian country, which risked being blacklisted by the watchdog, was removed from the list of countries with vulnerable financial systems after it successfully implemented 34 action points to counter money laundering and terror financing.

Pakistan witnessed a significant increase in the number of terrorist attacks in 2023, compared with 2022, according to the State Department. The government continued to operate “deradicalization” camps offering “corrective religious education,” vocational training, and counseling last year.

“Military, paramilitary, and civilian security forces conducted CT (counter-terrorism) operations throughout Pakistan against anti-state militants in 2023,” it said.

“Pakistan participated in several formal and informal multilateral fora where CT cooperation was discussed, including, the Global Counterterrorism Forum, and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.”

Pakistan witnessed an increase of 17 percent in militant attacks that hit the country in 2023, the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) said in its report in January.

This was the third year in a row when the number of militant attacks and consequent casualties surged in Pakistan, according to the Islamabad-based research and advocacy think-tank. A total of 306 militant attacks took place in Pakistan in 2023, including 23 suicide bombings, which killed 693 people and injured 1,124 others. 

Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks in its northwestern and southwestern parts that border Afghanistan since the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) called off its fragile truce with the government in Islamabad in November 2022. The militant group is separate from but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.

Islamabad has blamed Kabul’s Afghan Taliban rulers for facilitating the TTP and other anti-Pakistan militant groups who launch attacks from their soil. Afghan officials deny involvement, insisting Pakistan’s security issues are an internal matter of Islamabad.