A three-month-old infant receives polio vaccination drops from his mother at a camp in Jalozai, Pakistan on July 13.
A ban on polio vaccinations imposed by the Taliban could affect about 280,000 children living in tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, according to estimates from the World Health Organization.
Last month, local Taliban militants prohibited polio vaccines over the United States’ use of drone strikes in the region.
When a three-day nationwide effort to administer polio vaccines began this week,health workers and volunteers weren’t able to immunize children in North and South Waziristan.
Under this security situation, they “obviously cannot operate,” said Mazhar Nisar, the health education adviser in the Pakistani prime minister’s polio program. “We’re hoping that the campaign will resume in the near future.”
Throughout the rest of the country, vaccination efforts continued as 180,000 health workers and volunteers fanned throughout communities trying to immunize 34 million children, under the age of 5.
