Islamabad: Suspected militants shot and killed a woman polio vaccinator and injured another in an attack in Peshawar city of northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, prompting the World Health Organisation to suspend its vaccination campaign. Two gunmen riding a motorcycle fired at the vaccinators at Badabher area on the outskirts of Peshawar while they were administering polio drops to children.
One female vaccinator was killed instantly, police and witnesses said. The injured vaccinator was taken to Lady Reading Hospital, where doctors described her condition as critical.
Security forces cordoned off the area and launched a search operation for the gunmen. No group claimed responsibility for the attack though the Pakistani Taliban banned polio vaccinations in parts of the tribal belt last year, claiming the drive was a cover for espionage.
Following the attack, WHO announced it was temporarily suspending its vaccination campaign in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. A fresh three-day anti-polio campaign had been launched on Tuesday in parts of Peshawar. ...
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10:23 AM, May 29, 2013
The week between April 24 and April 30 is marked as World Immunization Week. India has already weeded out Polio but several other life-threatening diseases remain. What should be the next priorities? Virologist and pediatrician Dr. Jacob John shared his perspective with IBNLive readers for an interaction on the issue. Q. Sir, I am a Physician. Every year in India a number of Patients especially Pediatric die due to viral...
05:14 PM, Apr 26, 2013
Patna: World Health Organisation (WHO) appreciated the successful implementation of health programmes, particularly anti-polio and immunisation campaigns, in Bihar on Wednesday. The appreciation was expressed by WHO Representative in India Nata Menabde after a meeting with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna. Praising the anti-polio campaign, Menabde said Bihar had not registered a single case of polio in the last three years, an official statement said. On the immunisation programme,...
05:00 PM, Apr 17, 2013
Islamabad: The Pakistani Taliban has said they will back the government's polio vaccination program if they are guaranteed it will not be used to mask a US espionage campaign. "We're not opposed to any vaccination if we are convinced that the dose for polio is allowed by Islam and that espionage agents are not using it to kill our militants," Taliban spokesman Ehsanula Eshan told Dawn television. "This is in...
11:59 AM, Apr 13, 2013
Islamabad: A policeman was killed and another seriously injured when suspected terrorists attacked a team of polio vaccinators in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, police officials said. Two policemen protecting the vaccinators were injured in the shooting in Mardan town of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. One of the policemen died while being taken to hospital, Deputy Inspector General of Police Zafar Khan told reporters. The other policeman, who sustained serious injuries, was rushed...
11:50 AM, Apr 11, 2013
Impressed with success of anti-polio campaign in Bihar, a four-member team from Pakistan is in Patna on the invitation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to take tips about the programme particularly in minority Muslim dominated areas. ...
03:40 AM, Feb 25, 2013
William Henry 'Bill' Gates with an estimated wealth of $65 billion is as rich as two Kenyas, three Trinidads and a dozen Montenegros but is now engaged in the process of ridding himself of all the money in the hope of extending the lives of others less fortunate than himself. Having already given away $28 billion, the 57-year-old Microsoft co-founder now intends to eradicate polio, the British newspaper Telegraph reported....
09:52 PM, Jan 19, 2013
As the country marks two years of being polio free, CNN-IBN brings the story of Ramesh Ferris. Fighting all odds and biases against children with polio, the crusader is spreading awareness about the disease. ...
01:11 PM, Jan 14, 2013
It's a rare moment of pride for India as it celebrates two years of being polio-free on Sunday. The drive against polio is considered to be one of the most effective public health campaigns launched in India and has started yielding positive results. ...
11:35 AM, Jan 13, 2013
Gunmen ambushed and shot dead five Pakistani women aid workers and a male colleague on January 1, police said. Their vehicle was raked with gunfire as they returned home from work at a children's community centre run by Pakistani charity Ujala, or Light, said district police officer Abdur Rashid Khan. Their driver was seriously wounded in the attack. ...
05:29 PM, Jan 01, 2013
As 2012 comes to an end, CNN-IBN takes a look at the key health issues of the year - from the fight against polio that India can take pride in to the dismal malnutrition figures that shame the nation. ...
09:22 AM, Dec 27, 2012
Islamabad: Gunmen staged fresh attacks on UN-backed polio vaccination teams in Pakistan, killing two more polio workers and wounding six in the country's northwest on Wednesday, a day after six health workers were gunned down in Karachi and Peshawar. Teams involved in a nationwide anti-polio campaign were attacked at Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera in the restive Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa province, officials said. A woman anti-polio campaign supervisor and her driver were killed...
02:32 PM, Dec 19, 2012
New Delhi: Having made unprecedented progress in polio eradication, India is now gearing up to be declared polio free by 2014 by guarding itself against the import of polio virus from neighbouring countries and by boosting routine immunisation. Earlier this year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had removed India from the list of polio-endemic countries. If no fresh case is reported till 2014, the country will be declared polio free....
04:26 AM, Oct 24, 2012
London: A top British University is planning to undertake a new research study looking at ethics, policy and practice concerning polio immunisation in India. University of Birmingham is working with Ravenshaw University in the eastern Indian state of Orissa on the new research project, a press release by the University said. Although India has been removed from the list of polio endemic countries, misconceptions still remain around polio vaccination within...
03:19 AM, Jul 14, 2012
New Delhi: You could say actor Jackie Shroff's abuses behind the scenes of a polio eradication advertisement by Government of India is nothing short of 'Rangeela'. The actor was the butt of jokes on Twitter all day on Tuesday after the ad went viral. A volley of hilarious abuses was hurled by the actor who just couldn't get the chaste script right. As the cameraman soon learnt, whatever you do,...
10:04 PM, Jul 10, 2012
Islamabad: In another setback to Pakistan's efforts to eradicate polio, the Taliban has banned a vaccination campaign in the restive South Waziristan region till the US halts its drone strikes in the tribal belt, a bizarre diktat that will affect 80,000 children. A pamphlet distributed by the Mullah Nazir faction of Taliban yesterday in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan Agency, claimed Western powers were running a spy network...
03:21 PM, Jun 26, 2012
New Delhi/Mumbai: India has been polio free for over a year. But the big danger now is a cross-border threat. Pakistan is seeing a sudden surge of new polio cases with the Taliban blocking the Polio vaccination drive in Waziristan. There have been no polio cases detected in India for a year and a half now - a tremendous milestone that has left only Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria on the...
09:49 AM, Jun 19, 2012
Islamabad: A powerful Pakistani Taliban faction has said it will not allow an anti-polio campaign to be conducted in its stronghold of North Waziristan tribal region as long as US drone strikes continue in the area. The group led by commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur distributed a pamphlet on Saturday that announced the ban on the government's polio vaccination campaign. The ban has raised concerns about the spread of polio in...
01:32 AM, Jun 18, 2012
Islamabad: A cleric in Pakistan's Punjab province has warned that a jihad would be launched against polio vaccination teams at a time when the World Health Organisation has expressed concern at the emergence of new cases of the disease across the country. Maulvi Ibrahim Chisti of Muzaffargarh district declared the anti-polio campaign as "un-Islamic" and announced at the local mosque that jihad(holy war) should be carried out against the polio...
12:37 PM, Jun 13, 2012
New Delhi: Impressed with India's successful effort in polio eradication, Pakistan is keen to emulate the model to achieve polio-free status even as it allayed fears of exporting the virus to the Indian side. A nine-member Pakistani delegation on Thursday met India's Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and senior officials of the Ministry and took tips on the polio eradication programme. "We are learning from your country. We hope that...
10:29 PM, May 31, 2012
