Firing at polio vaccination team kills policeman in Mardan

Gunmen in Mardan district Tuesday shot dead a policeman, who was providing security to a polio vaccination team, police said.

A polio team, guarded by police, was busy to administrate drops to children in the outskirts of Mardan when unidentified armed men opened indiscriminate fire at them, killing a police man at the scene.

No one from the polio team was hurt, a police officer said. The attackers fled after the incident.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack. Taliban groups had banned polio drops in the tribal regions to protest against the U.S. drones strikes.

Police now accompany polio teams in the country after the targeted killings of polio workers parts of Pakistan including Karachi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

In December the UN children’s agency UNICEF and the World Health Organisation suspended the polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan after a series of attacks against workers.

Nearly a dozen polio vaccination workers, including female, have been killed in attacks over the past three months.

In July, armed men also killed a Pakistani doctor working for the World Health Organization on a national immunization campaign.

Pakistan had reported a total of 58 cases in the year 2012 with 27 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 20 in tribal regions, four in Balochistan, two in Punjab, four in Sindh and one in northern areas of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Polio cases in Pakistan have increased sharply in recent years, hitting 198 in 2011, the highest figure for more than a decade and the most of any country in the world, according to the World Health Organisation.

Pakistan’s nationwide eradication program has existed since 1994, but instability and war hampers efforts.

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the only three countries were polio remains endemic.

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Posted by Tahir Khan on Feb 26 2013. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.