Pakistani health officials are rushing to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children against polio amid fears that a civilian exodus from a tribal area where the virus is rampant could spread the disease around the country.
Nearly half a million people have fled a military operation against Taliban strongholds in North Waziristan, a hotspot for the crippling disease in Pakistan.
Children in the tribal district have not been vaccinated since Taliban and local warlords banned health teams from giving out drops in June 2012.
Tens of thousands of families have fled to the town of Bannu, close to North Waziristan, while hundreds more have moved further afield to Lakki Marwat, Karak and Dera Ismail Khan towns, since the offensive began in mid-June.
Officials have begun a vaccination campaign in Bannu and three other districts adjacent to North Waziristan, vaccinating both resident families and newcomers fleeing the offensive.
"We are vaccinating both local and displaced children, the target is to vaccinate more than 200,000 children," doctor Akbar Jan, a senior health official in Bannu, said.
The campaign in areas adjoining North Waziristan began - unannounced - on Monday.
More than 50 cases of polio have been detected so far this year in militant-infested North Waziristan, out of 82 cases across the country - and 103 worldwide.
Pakistan is one of only three countries, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio remains endemic, and efforts to eradicate it have been badly hit by rumours about the vaccine.
Various outlandish claims have circulated about the drops - that they contain pork, or cause infertility or AIDS.
But health workers giving out the vaccine in a narrow street in Bannu's Tanchi bazaar area said they had encountered little resistance.
"This is a house-to-house campaign, our team has vaccinated 300 children in two days," Shumaila Khan said.
"So far no family has refused to vaccinate their kids. There were many who were reluctant at first but later convinced."
Many parents had heard the rumours about the vaccine, Khan said.
"They said the Taliban told them it was an American conspiracy to disable their children, to make them infertile and to decrease the Muslim population," she said.
At the start of May, WHO declared a global "public health emergency" after new polio cases began surfacing and spreading across borders from countries including Pakistan.
Pakistan imposed new travel guidelines after the WHO move, requiring all citizens and long-term residents to have a polio vaccination certificate to travel abroad.
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