In a shocking incident, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed a polio vaccinator in the southwestern Pakistani city of Chaman on Thursday. The incident has brought the death toll among vaccinators working in the countries to three. The condition of the injured female health worker remains “critical.”
“The women were coming back from the field after administering polio drops to children when they were shot at by two unknown men riding a motorbike,” said Rashid Razzaq, a senior official at the polio emergency center in the provincial capital of Quetta. He told a media that one victim died instantly while the other received “serious” bullet injuries and is undergoing treatment in a Quetta hospital.
Vaccination was suspended for an indeterminate period of time in the Chaman area after the shooting. The incident came amid a nationwide vaccination drive that was launched on April 23.
Fundamentalist clerics and militants claim that government vaccination campaigns are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize Pakistani children.
