PAKISTAN: Three killed in attack on polio team in Karachi

Record ID: 354092

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Three killed in attack on polio team in Karachi
  • Date: 21st January 2014
  • Summary: KARACHI, PAKISTAN (JANUARY 21, 2014) (REUTERS) AMBULANCES CARRYING BODIES ARRIVING AT HOSPITAL MORGUE RESCUE WORKERS BRING BODY INSIDE MORTUARY WORKER COVERING BODY WITH WHITE SHEET TWO DEAD BODIES COVERED IN SHEETS THREE DEAD BODIES PLACED IN MORGUE/POLICE INVESTIGATING POLICE GUARDS STANDING OUTSIDE UNION COUNCIL OFFICE, A BASE OF POLIO WORKERS POLICE OFFICERS SPEAKING
  • Embargoed: 5th February 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Crime,General,Health,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA25KE161U68S1TJXSJY6K2FAHJ
  • Story Text: Three polio workers, including two women, were killed when a polio team was attacked by unknown gunmen in Pakistan's biggest city of Karachi on Tuesday (January 21), police said.
    The attack came a day after health authorities in the southern province of Sindh began to immunise some 7.6 million children of the province with polio vaccine as part of a three-day nationwide drive.
    Polio can permanently paralyze or kill victims within hours of infection. Intensive vaccination campaigns have almost eradicated the disease worldwide, but it remains endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.
    Those killed were aged between 24 and 31 years. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Police said a passer-by was also injured in the attack.
    "The polio campaign was underway. The polio workers were out to immunize children. Two female health workers and one male worker have been killed. One other has been wounded," said police officer, Tariq Rahim.
    Witness Sajid Hussain Shah said the incident took place outside his house.
    "We were having breakfast inside our house. Suddenly there was firing outside and sounds against the door. When I came out, some bullets even entered my house. I stopped there, and after a while I got out and saw two dead bodies of polio workers lying on the ground. Their papers were scattered all over beside them and blood was everywhere," Shah said.
    Health teams in Pakistan have been attacked repeatedly. Taliban commanders have forbidden vaccination teams to access some areas. A handful of religious leaders have also denounced the campaign as a plot to sterilize Muslim children.
    The rhetoric has fueled violence against the vaccination teams. Many teams travel only with police protection. Last year there were more than 30 attacks on polio teams.
    Pakistan's volatile northwestern city of Peshawar is the largest reservoir of endemic polio viruses in the world, the World Health Organization said on last week, amid concerns over continuing violence against polio vaccination teams.
    Pakistan is also the only polio-endemic country in the world where cases rose from 2012 to 2013, the statement said. There were 91 cases last year but only 58 the year before.
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