Pakistan Re-Launches Polio Vaccination Campaign Amid Increased Security
“Pakistan’s ambassador for polio eradication, Aseefa Bhutto Zardari, re-launched the anti-polio campaign in Sindh [province] on Tuesday,” Pakistan Today reports. “Aseefa administered anti-polio vaccine drops to infants in Karachi and distributed gifts among the children,” according to the newspaper (1/8). “The campaign in the city was halted last month after deadly attacks on polio teams in the metropolis,” the News Tribe writes (Jan, 1/8). The Voice of Russia U.K. Edition reports campaign workers were provided with high-level security, and the vaccinators aim to immunize more than 2.5 million children. The news service provides audio of a discussion on polio in Pakistan, in which “VoR’s Brendan Cole discusses the issue with senior research fellow for the Asia program at Chatham House, Gareth Price; Heidi Larson, senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Abdul Majid Katme from the Islamic Medical Association; and Zeenia Satti, an Islamabad-based columnist and security analyst” (1/8).