Islamabad, April 15
Two health workers affiliated with Pakistan's anti-polio campaign were abducted by unidentified gunmen in the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said Tuesday.
The incident occurred in the Kulachi area of Dera Ismail Khan district, where armed men intercepted a passenger bus en route to Dera Ismail Khan and forcibly took the two workers -- Raz Muhammad and Muhammad Asif -- to an unknown location, a local police official said.
The victims were returning from official duties related to the country's polio eradication campaign, police said.
Law enforcement agencies have launched a search and rescue operation in the area. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the abduction, news agency reported.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where wild poliovirus remains endemic. Polio workers have frequently been targeted in attacks, particularly in the northwest and southwest regions.
One of the reasons for the presence of the virus is the refusal of the majority of the people to have their children vaccinated. Polio health workers have been victims of targetted killings and attacks by militant groups, who have opposed anti-polio campaigns in the country.
On Sunday, the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme said in a statement that Poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples from 20 districts across Pakistan following test results from the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH).