A police officer was killed after militants attacked a health center during an ongoing anti-polio campaign in the restive northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday.
Three of the attackers were also killed in the exchange, the law enforcement said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Orakzai, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban.
Local police officer Adnan Khan said the attack happened in the morning hours as health workers were gathering ahead of leaving for the door-to-door campaign along with police, who escort polio teams for their safety.
No polio worker was harmed in Tuesday's attack but another police officer was wounded, Mr Khan added.
Pakistan began a nationwide vaccination campaign Monday to protect 45 million children from polio after a surge in new cases that has hampered years of efforts to stop the disease.
The Pakistani government regularly launches such campaigns, but violence targeting the health workers and police assigned to escort them is common.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the spread of polio has never been stopped. In severe cases, polio can cause permanent paralysis and death.
The militants falsely claim that the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilise children.
The rebels on Tuesday also stormed a separate health center in North Waziristan, another former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, snatched guns from officers and warned health workers who had gathered there not to take part in the anti-polio campaign.
The attackers then left with the weapons they seized, said local police officer Shoib Khan.
Pakistan has recorded 41 cases across 71 districts so far this year, mostly in southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh provinces, as well as in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and eastern Punjab province.
Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif recently met with front-line health workers, urging them to ensure no child was left unvaccinated by going door-to-door.
In Afghanistan, local health authorities said Monday that vaccinations have also started in 16 of the country’s 34 provinces. The campaign will last three days and target 6.2 million children under the age of 5, according to spokesman Sharafat Zaman.
World Health Organization data says there have been 23 confirmed cases in Afghanistan this year.
