ISLAMABAD (Agencies) - Unidentified men abducted eight members of a polio vaccination team in the northwest on Monday, leaving the medical drive to a halt in the turbulent region. The team was busy in vaccination of 6,000 kids in Darsmand area of Hangu district, NWFP, near the Afghan border when eight members were kidnapped, a health official told a TV channel. Health ministry has demanded suspension of the polio vaccination drive in Hangu district after the kidnapping. Meanwhile, a three-day polio eradication campaign started on Monday in 44 high-risk districts to immunise children under five years of age. According to an official of Expanded Programme on Immunisation, total eight million children will be vaccinated. The campaign activities are being monitored by more than 500 national monitors. A total of 30,000 vaccination teams, 6500 area supervisors and 1000 zonal supervisors are participating in the drive. The main focus of the campaign is to administer anti polio drops to children living in high-risk areas while National Highway and Motorway Police will support the campaign by administering children at toll plazas in the country, he added. He said UN agencies, polio partners, donor governments, the private sector and foundations are extending all possible support to ensure making country polio free. The Ministry of Health has appealed the parents to administer polio drops to their children for success of the campaign started for complete eradication of polio virus. It also asked community leaders, media persons, religious scholars, health workers and teachers to play their role in this regard for educating parents. The polio virus is extremely contagious and can travel silently from village to village and country to country, through un-immunised children. The first national polio immunisation campaign was held in 1994. It was estimated that prior to that campaign as many 15 to 20 thousand children per year were being crippled by this disease in Pakistan alone. There is no clue as to which group carried out the abduction. Police have started search operation for the recovery of abductees. There has been increase of polio cases in Pakistan in recent years, most of which is concentrated in the NWFP where some extremists claim that the vaccination could cause infertility and is against Islam.