A polio worker and a policeman were killed on Wednesday after unidentified gunmen ambushed a team of polio vaccinators in Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said.

Following the attack, a police team reached the site and cordoned off the area in Salarzai tehsil of Bajaur district.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Militants frequently target the polio workers in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur condemned the attack and sought an urgent report on the attack from the district police.

This is the second attack on frontline polio workers in the current round of the national vaccination campaign.

On Monday, at least six people, including three policemen, were injured in a bomb explosion that targeted a vehicle carrying workers associated with the Pakistan Polio Programme in South Waziristan district’s Wana town.

Pakistan last week reported its first polio case in the capital Islamabad in the last 16 years, a setback to the national efforts aimed at eradicating the crippling virus from the country.

The country came close to achieving zero poliovirus cases in 2021 when only one infection was reported.

So far this year, 12 cases have been reported from Balochistan, three from Sindh, and one from Punjab and Islamabad each.

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