Pakistan gunmen kill four polio workers in Quetta
The
polio team were attacked before joining their security detail
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Four polio vaccination workers have
been shot dead and three injured in the south-west Pakistani city of Quetta.
Police said the three female health
workers and their male driver were attacked by two gunmen on a motorbike.
Anti-polio efforts in the province have been suspended, the authorities say.
The shootings are the latest in a
series targeting Pakistani polio teams. No group has claimed responsibility.
Militants say polio teams are spies
or that the vaccine causes infertility.
Pakistan is one of only three
countries where the disease is still endemic, the others being Nigeria and
Afghanistan.
Pakistan's National Co-ordinator for
Polio Eradication, Ayesha Raza Farooq, told the BBC it was a "cowardly
attack". She said the shootings happened as the workers walked a short
distance to a rendezvous with their security detail.
"There was going to be security
with this team before they went in and started their work. However, no one
could have thought that this team would be intercepted," she said.
More than 60 Pakistani polio
workers, or their guards and drivers, have been killed since 2012 - with most
attacks blamed on Islamic extremists, the BBC's M Ilyas Khan reports from
Islamabad.
Police officer Imran Qureshi told
the BBC that two of the workers, both women, died on the spot, while two others
died later of injuries sustained in the attack.
Pakistan has so far reported 260 new
cases of polio this year, its highest number since 2000.
·
Poliomyelitis mainly affects
children under five
·
Invades the nervous system and can
cause total paralysis within hours
·
One in 200 infections leads to
irreversible paralysis
·
Polio cases have decreased by more
than 99% since 1988
·
Endemic in three countries -
Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan
·
There is no cure but the virus can
be prevented by immunisation
Source: World Health Organization
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