Two female workers die in attack on polio team in Swabi

Three new polio cases have confirmed with the total of 6 in 2020

QUETTA/ PESHAWAR/ ISLAMABAD: Two female polio workers were gunned down in Razar Tehsil of Swabi district on Wednesday when unknown assailants attacked them.
Local police sources informed The Express Tribune that the victims were administering polio vaccination in Mir Ali Area of Swabi when the men opened fire on the workers.

The deceased were identified as Shakeela, a resident of Parmoli village while the other victim was Ghuncha who belonged to Bukki area of Swabi.



Shakeela died on the spot while Ghuncha was seriously injured and has been shifted to Mardan Medical Complex for further treatment. Later, she was also pronounced dead.

Meanwhile, three new cases of polio has been emerged one each from Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa making the total count to six in the first month of 2020.



A 20-month-old child belonged to Dera Murad Jamali tehsil of Naseerabad district has been a confirmed case of polio from Balochistan.

The child has been administered polio drops three times but severity of the paralysed diseases gripped her. Her samples were obtained on January 3, 2020.

Another polio case was confirmed from Jumo Agham, a union council of Ratodero, Sindh where a 26-month-old child was affected by the disease. His samples were obtained on Dec 24, 2019.

Polio virus has also affected an 11-month-old child of Tank distric of KP.

In 2019, total cases of polio have reached to 140 with highest number of cases in KP, 92; 28 cases were confirmed from Sindh, 12 from Balochistan and eight from Punjab.