The Pakistani government has suspended the anti-polio campaign “for an indefinite period” amid serious security threats and increasing attacks on polio workers in different parts of the country, local media reports said.

And for the first time in the history of Pakistan, the government has also suspended the post-campaign evaluation — Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS), reported Dawn News quoted by IBNS.

The National Emergency Opera­tion Centre (EOC) for polio, Islam­abad, issued a red alert to all the provinces on Friday, directing them to stop the anti-polio campa­ign all over the country to protect 270,000 polio field staff from attacks, the newspaper reported.

The nationwide campaign was launched on April 22.

“After the Peshawar incident, the uncertain and threatening situation for the frontline polio workers has emerged and we need to save the programme from further major damage,” reads the alert issued by the EOC as quoted by the newspaper.(SAM)