Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Pakistan: Cops escorting polio team shot dead in D I Khan

Two policemen escorting a polio vaccination team for security were shot dead in Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday, DawnNews reported. The two cops were returning to their homes after performing their duties when the were targeted by unknown gunmen in Garo Ahmed area of D I Khan, killing the two on the spot. Police and rescue teams reached the spot and shifted the bodies to a hospital for post-mortem. Efforts to eradicate it have been seriously hampered by the deadly targeting of vaccination teams in recent years.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Jan 17 had declared Pakistan's troubled northwestern city of Peshawar as the world’s “largest reservoir” of endemic polio and called for urgent action to boost vaccination. Militant groups see vaccination campaigns as a cover for espionage, and there are also long running rumours about polio drops causing infertility. Increasing number of polio cases have give rise to fears that Pakistanis could face travel restrictions over the growing polio cases in the country.

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