Parents, officials in Pakistan working to bring polio vaccine to areas under militant control

"Parents and officials are going to great lengths to immunize children after militants imposed a ban on polio vaccinations in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan Agency," with some parents "traveling long distances to get their children vaccinated" or "smuggling the vaccine back home," IRIN reports. "Militants in the area banned all polio vaccinations in June 2012, to protest the killing of civilians by drones," the news service notes. IRIN describes steps officials are taking to skirt the ban, including "denying tribal people of North Waziristan passports, national identity cards and other official documentation if community leaders don't overturn the ban" (3/28). In a video report, Al Jazeera reports on the impact of the CIA's use of a fake vaccination drive in 2011 to collect information on Osama bin Laden's whereabouts and violence against vaccinators on Pakistan's polio immunization campaigns (Tyab, 3/27).