PESHAWAR, Pakistan — PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Suspected gunmen shot dead a policeman guarding a team of polio workers in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, the latest in a series of attacks on vaccination teams in the country.
The attack took place in Matta district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, once a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, a day after Pakistan begins week-long nationwide vaccination campaign immunize 45 million children.
Local police spokesman Javed Khan said a group of female polio workers were administering polio drops to children in the house when “terrorists riding a motorcycle opened fire” and killed the officer. He said that a search operation was underway to locate and apprehend the attackers.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a statement condemned the attack and vowed to take stern action against those responsible.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. but suspicion will most likely fall on the militants who often attack health workers and police officers called upon to protect them.
More than 200 polio workers and the police officers who protected them have been killed in Pakistan since the 1990s, according to health and security officials. Militants often falsely claim that vaccination campaigns are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children.
Since January, Pakistan has reported 29 cases of polio. The ongoing campaign sees more than 400,000 trained workers going door to door to vaccinate children.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries where transmission of wild poliovirus has never been stopped, according to the World Health Organization.
