“UNICEF is outraged by this attack,” the organization said at the time. “Frontline health workers should never be a target of violence.”
Around the same time of the shootings, there was an explosion at the city’s regional hospital, near the compound where the vaccines are stored, officials said.
No group took credit for those attacks. But the Taliban have in the past expressed skepticism of door-to-door vaccination drives, saying they believed some vaccinators acted as spies.
The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August, two decades after the American-led invasion of the country drove the group from power.
Health officials welcomed the Taliban’s support for the program.
“We’ve been working with them for decades,” Dr. Jafari said, noting that the Taliban controlled large parts of the country during their exile from power. The Taliban “have always been supportive of polio vaccination and eradication,” he said.
Dr. Ahmed al-Mandhari, the WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said, “The urgency with which the Taliban leadership wants the polio campaign to proceed demonstrates a joint commitment to maintain the health system and restart essential immunizations to avert further outbreaks of preventable diseases.”
Restarting this vaccination program, said George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF’s regional director for South Asia, is “a step closer toward achieving our shared hope of eradicating polio in the region.”