Pakistan police guarding polio workers killed

Gunmen have shot dead at least one policeman providing security to a team of polio workers in north-west Pakistan, officials say. Two policemen were travelling from the town of Swabi to Topi by motorbike when they were attacked. It is unclear if the other guard survived the attack. It is the latest in a series of attacks on polio teams around the country. The Taliban oppose the polio vaccination scheme, which they see as a cover for international espionage. Islamist militants have been at the forefront of a decade-long campaign of violence against health workers, who they also accuse of being part of a Western plot to sterilise Muslims. But earlier this week a prominent religious seminary in Pakistan - which wields great influence with Taliban groups - backed polio vaccinations, saying they are not un-Islamic. Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio remains endemic, due in part to militant resistance to polio mass vaccination campaigns. Nigeria and Afghanistan are the others. The current campaign against immunisation was started by the current Pakistani Taliban leader, Mullah Fazlullah, in 2005, and turned more violent after US forces killed former al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, in a secret raid in 2011.

No group has said it carried out this latest attack.

Polio's last stand? 2012 cases

Nigeria - 97

Pakistan - 47

Afghanistan - 26

Chad - 5*

Source: IMB

* Polio is considered "non-endemic" in Chad