Peshawar

Hand Grenade Attack on Polio Supervisor's House

Monday, April 28, 2014
Two women were killed and 2 children sustained injuries, when unidentified men hurled a hand grenade on a house located in the limits of Suru police station today. According to the police sources, in the limits of Suru police station, few unknown armed men threw a hand grenade on the house of a Polio Supervisor Falak Niyaz, as a result of which two women got killed and two children were seriously injured.

Health Workers Murdered as Pakistan Vaccinates

Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Despite an army of police, vaccination workers in Pakistan are still being murdered in the midst of a public health initiative aimed at vaccinating 8.4 million children in one province against polio and several other diseases in just three months. The Health for All vaccination program, which runs Feb. 2 through April, is targets indigenous wild poliovirus, which is still endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Of the three countries, only Pakistan is seeing an increase in cases. In January 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, “the world's largest reservoir of endemic poliovirus.”

Pakistan Polio Vaccinator's Murder by Militants Raises Health Workers' Fears

Tuesday, March 25, 2014
The unusual night-time kidnapping and brutal murder of a female polio vaccinator in the troubled Pakistani city of Peshawar has heightened fears among health workers struggling to stamp out the virus in the face of violent opposition from militant groups. The body of Salma Farooqi, a 30-year-old who had been involved for years in Peshawar’s battle against polio, was recovered from a field 4km (2.5 miles) from her home on Monday, a day after armed men stormed her house, tied up family members and took her away.