Eight polio workers in Pakistan shot dead
Sindh halts immunisation after health workers killed; other provinces likely to follow suit
Gunmen in Pakistan mounted fresh attacks yesterday on health workers carrying out polio vaccinations, taking the death toll to eight and prompting Unicef and WHO to suspend work on a campaign opposed by the Taliban.
Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world where polio is still endemic. But efforts to stamp out the crippling disease have been hampered by the Taliban, who have banned vaccination teams from some areas.
Eight people working to immunise children against the highly infectious disease have been shot dead in Pakistan since the start of a three-day UN-backed nationwide vaccination campaign on Monday. In the latest attack on Wednesday, a female health worker and her driver were shot dead in Charsadda near Peshawar, the main town in the northwest, police official Wajid Khan said. A second police officer confirmed the incident.
Another worker was shot and critically wounded while giving out polio drops earlier yesterday on the outskirts of Peshawar.
After reporting the man's death, doctors at the city's Lady Reading Hospital later said he was being kept alive on life-support equipment.
"Medically he is dead but we have put him on a mechanical ventilator. This is our last try for his life but he is not responding," said Abdul Qadir, neurosurgeon in the intensive-care unit.