close
Blogtrottr
CNN.com - Top Stories
CNN.com delivers up-to-the-minute news and information on the latest top stories, weather, entertainment, politics and more. // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Polio aid workers again attacked
Dec 19th 2012, 09:35

A mother with the body of her daughter, a health worker who was gunned down in Karachi on December 18.
A mother with the body of her daughter, a health worker who was gunned down in Karachi on December 18.
  • Four attacks take place on Wednesday, killing three workers
  • On Tuesday, five workers are killed
  • Pakistanis have viewed polio vaccination campaigns with suspicion

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Health workers administering polio vaccinations came under fresh attack in Pakistan on Wednesday, a troubling development in a nation that remains one of three in the world where the disease has yet to be eradicated.

Three workers were killed in separate attacks, a day after five others died in similar circumstances.

All of them were part of a massive vaccination campaign nationwide.

The attacks prompted authorities to suspend the campaign in Balochistan and Sindh, two of four provinces that make up the country.

Officials are considering whether to broaden the suspension to include the other two.

Read more: At the U.N., a vow to eradicate polio by 2015

In Wednesday's attacks:

-- Two men opened fire on an 18-year-old worker as he was vaccinating children on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar. The worker died of bullet wounds to the head, said Dr. Janbaz Afridi, the provincial director of the polio campaign.

-- Gunmen opened fire on a car carrying a vaccination campaign supervisor and her driver in Charsadda -- killing them both.

-- Also in Charsadda, two female workers narrowly escaped when some men began shooting at them.

-- Three other female workers also escaped unhurt when they were shot at in Nowshera district.

All the attacks Wednesday took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province rife with Islamic extremists.

On Tuesday, five workers were killed: four in Karachi; and a 14-year-old volunteer in Peshawar as she and her sister were leaving a house after administering vaccines.

Pakistanis have viewed polio vaccination campaigns with suspicion after the CIA's use of a fake vaccination program last year to collect DNA samples from residents of Osama bin Laden's compound to verify the al Qaeda leader's presence there.

Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in May 2011.

In June, a Taliban commander in northwest Pakistan announced a ban on polio vaccines for children in the region as long as the United States continues its campaign of drone strikes in the region, the Taliban said.

CNN was not able to reach the Taliban for comment regarding the latest attacks.

Polio, a highly infectious viral disease that can cause permanent paralysis in a matter of hours, has been eradicated around the world except for three countries where it is endemic: Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan.

After the number of cases spiked sharply last year, Pakistan stepped up its eradication efforts. The numbers fell from 173 last year to 53 this year, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions
arrow
arrow
    全站熱搜

    rainbow6867 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()