By News18

Copyright news18

Peshawar, Sep 16 (PTI) Unidentified armed men abducted three members of a polio monitoring team in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said on Tuesday.
The incident happened on Monday in the Union Council of Umerkhel in Tank district, bordering South Waziristan, police added.
District Surveillance Officer Dr. Ihsanullah was among those who were kidnapped.
According to the police, the polio surveillance team, affiliated with the World Health Organisation, was monitoring the ongoing four-day anti-polio campaign from September 15 to 18 in the Union Council of Umerkhel when the gunmen intercepted them and took them hostage.
Police teams immediately launched a search operation in the area.
On Monday, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa reported two new polio cases, taking the total number of cases in the country this year to 26, as per the National Institute of Health (NIH).
Access to remote areas and security concerns have always been a challenge for the teams.
According to authorities, 124 parents in the Tank district are still refusing to administer oral polio drops to their children.
Pakistan is one of the last two countries in the world, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic. Despite global efforts to eradicate the virus, challenges such as security issues, vaccine hesitancy, and misinformation have slowed progress. PTI AYZ SKS RD