Blast during polio vaccination drive kills five police officers and injures two dozen

An injured man is being transported to a hospital for medical treatment following a blast targeting a police vehicle near the Afghan border in Peshawar, Pakistan, on January 8, 2024. The explosive attack, which occurred during a polio vaccination drive, resulted in the death of five police officers and left nearly two dozen others wounded. The blast took place in Peshawar, a tribal district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, as the vaccination campaign was getting underway. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, although the Pakistani Taliban has a history of targeting polio vaccination workers and security officials. Resistance to the immunization drive has increased due to past CIA involvement and misinformation propagated by religious leaders. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are still not declared free of the wild poliovirus type 1, although Pakistan reported a significant decrease in polio cases in 2023. This attack on the vaccination team coincides with a rise in violent incidents in Pakistan, with over 600 attacks and more than 950 fatalities reported in 2023, according to data compiled by the Pakistan Institute of Conflict and Security Studies, a research organization based in Islamabad.