Pakistan er et af verdens hårdest ramte lande af polio, og alene i 2011 blev næsten 200 børn lammet, det højeste antal i landet i 15 år. Sygdommen spreder sig med inficerede fækalier, og Taliban mener, at vaccinationsarbejdere er spioner.
Five female Pakistani polio vaccination workers have been fatally shot in a string of co-ordinated attacks – four within 20 minutes across Karachi, BBC online reports Tuesday.
No group has said it carried out the shootings, but the Taliban have issued threats against the polio drive in a country, where the highly infectious viral disease is endemic (udbredt).
Pakistani health officials said the latest three-day UN-backed nationwide anti-polio drive – during which an estimated 5,2 million polio drops were to be administered – had been suspended in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city with a population of 18 million.
There has been opposition to such immunisation drives in parts of Pakistan, particularly after a fake (falsk) CIA hepatitis (leverbetændelse) vaccination campaign helped to locate Osama Bin Laden in 2011.
Militants have kidnapped and killed foreign NGO workers in the past in an attempt to halt the immunisation drives, which they say are part of efforts to spy on them.
Many of the roughly 80.000 field workers across Pakistan, however needy they may be, will be forced to ask themselves whether the 1.500 rupee (15 US dollar) fee they will receive for a three-day campaign is worth the risk.
Along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is still endemic.
Pakistan is considered the key battleground in the global fight against the disease, which attacks the nervous system and can cause permanent paralysis within hours of infection.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said polio was at a tipping point, with experts fearing it could “come back with a vengeance” after large outbreaks in Africa and Tajikistan and China’s first recorded cases for more than a decade.
Declaring polio a national emergency, the Pakistani government is targeting 33 million children for vaccination with some 88.000 health workers delivering vaccination drops.
