Islamabad, Feb 10 (IANS) Two polio teams were attacked in different areas of Pakistan's Lahore as parents did not allow them to administer polio drops to their children, local media reported on Tuesday.

According to police, the suspects in Harbanspura area did not allow the polio team to administer drops to their children and then allegedly attacked the health workers, Pakistan's leading daily Dawn reported.

According to the FIR, the suspects attacked the polio workers and subsequently, called their accomplices, who also tortured the workers. The police team reached the spot after the polio workers dialled a helpline.

The suspects then attacked the police personnel as well. Later, the police lodged a case against them.

Similarly, the Shahdara police lodged a case against parents of some children for allegedly harassing the female polio workers who were visiting the area for vaccinating the children.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where Wild Poliovirus remains endemic. Polio workers in Pakistan have been frequently targetted in attacks, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Around a million children were not vaccinated and 53,000 refusals were reported during the first polio campaign conducted in Pakistan in 2026, local media reported on Monday. During the campaign, the largest share of refusals - 58 per cent - were reported in Pakistan's Karachi.

Polio drops were administered to over 44.3 million children in Pakistan. The data has indicated that the polio campaign achieved household coverage of 98 per cent, with only two per cent children missed, Dawn reported. However, the number of children who did not receive polio drops is still huge considering Pakistan's population.

Overall, 0.95 million children were reported as missed during the polio campaign launched in Pakistan in 2026. Among those, a large proportion of children (0.67 million) did not receive polio vaccination as they were not present at home. During the campaign, polio drops were administered to 2.5 million guest children, likely covering a substantial share of children who were not present at home at the time of vaccination.

"233,000 children were reported as leftovers due to security constraints, community boycotts, and snow-bound areas,” said an official. He mentioned that the total leftovers included 184,000 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and around 50,000 children remained unreachable in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) and Pakistan-occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB) due to snow-bound regions and non-conduct of campaigns.

The official stated that the polio eradication campaign was postponed in Mastung, Gwadar, Chagai, and Awaran areas of Balochistan due to security reasons. "0.14 pc of the total targetted children were reported as refusals, with 31,000 refusals from Karachi, forming the largest share."

According to the statement, polio drops were administered to more than 22.9 million children in Punjab, over 10.5 million children in Sindh, more than 7.13 children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and over 2.3 million children in Balochistan, according to the Dawn report.

During the polio campaign, more than 455,000 children were vaccinated in Islamabad, approximately 261,000 children were vaccinated in PoGB and more than 673,000 children were vaccinated in PoJK.

--IANS

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