A police officer protecting polio vaccination workers in Pakistan was shot dead by suspected militants on Tuesday, the latest in a series of attacks on immunisation teams in the country.
The incident occurred in the Matta area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban. Local police official Javed Khan said female polio workers were administering drops to children in a house when 'terrorists riding on a motorcycle opened fire' and killed the officer. A search operation is under way to apprehend the assailants.
The attack came a day after Pakistan launched a weeklong nationwide vaccination campaign aimed at immunising 45 million children. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the assault and vowed stern action against those responsible. No group has claimed responsibility, but suspicion often falls on militants who target health workers and their police guards.
More than 200 polio workers and police officers have been killed in Pakistan since the 1990s, according to health and security officials. Militants frequently falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western plot to sterilise Muslim children.
Since January, Pakistan has reported 29 polio cases. During the current campaign, over 400,000 trained workers are going door-to-door to vaccinate children. Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where transmission of the wild poliovirus has never been stopped, according to the World Health Organization.
