Pakistan anti-polio drive halted

Islamabad: Pakistan's anti-polio drive has been halted for security reasons in Khyber-Pakhtunkwa province where over 2.9 million children were expected to be administered the polio vaccine during the three-day campaign, media reported.

Earlier Monday morning, the campaign was launched and over 8,000 teams were constituted to administer anti-polio drops to about 2.9 million children.

Arrangements were also made to administer the vaccine to children at bus stops and railway statios.

On Monday, two more polio cases were confirmed by the Polio Virology Laboratory (PVG) at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad.

With these two fresh cases, the number of children hit by the crippling disease in Pakistan in the current year has reached 291.