Officials on Wednesday said Pakistani authorities have launched a search operation to trace and recover two polio vaccination workers abducted by unknown armed men.

A four-member polio monitoring team comprising a woman was kidnapped by unknown armed men in the Tank district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday.

The kidnappers released the woman and driver hours later.

“We are trying to trace the missing members of the polio monitoring team,” Muhammad Tahir, a police official from Tank, told dpa on Wednesday.

Tahir said that the polio monitoring team had been travelling without security guards adding that the kidnappers have not made any demands so far.

No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping though militants have attacked and killed polio workers and security officials in the country in the past.

According to the Health Ministry, more than 60 people including health workers and security personnel have lost their lives during polio vaccination campaigns since 2012.

Militants accused the health workers of acting as spies and claim the polio vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.

Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan are among the few countries in the world where new polio cases still surface.

Pakistan had only one case of polio in 2021 but 20 new cases were reported in 2022, all from the violence-stricken province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Only three new cases have been reported this year so far.