In a tragic incident on Tuesday, suspected militants targeted a polio vaccination team in the Matta area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, northwestern Pakistan, resulting in the death of a police officer assigned to protect the health workers. The attack occurred amidst a nationwide weeklong campaign aimed at immunizing 45 million children against polio. According to local police official Javed Khan, the assailants, riding a motorcycle, opened fire on the team while they were administering polio drops to children in a residential area. A search operation has been launched to apprehend the attackers. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack, pledging strict action against those responsible. While no group has claimed responsibility, suspicion has fallen on militant factions that have historically targeted polio workers and their security escorts. Since the 1990s, over 200 polio workers and police officers have been killed in Pakistan, with militants often propagating false claims that vaccination campaigns are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize Muslim children. Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only countries where wild poliovirus transmission persists, according to the World Health Organization. Since January, Pakistan has reported 29 polio cases, and the ongoing campaign involves over 400,000 trained workers conducting door-to-door vaccinations.