Gunman kills anti-polio vaccinator in SW Pakistan

KARACHI, Pakistan

A female anti-polio vaccinator was gunned down and another injured on Thursday in southwestern Pakistan, local media reported.

The incident -- latest in a series of similar attacks -- took place in a remote town of Chaman near Afghanistan border when the immunization team were vaccinating the children against the infectious polio disease, the local broadcaster Geo News said.

The recent attack forced the authorities to suspend the ongoing vaccination effort in the region, it added.

It was the third incident of targeting polio workers or the personnel providing security to the vaccinators in less than a week. The previous two incidents -- which left two police in charge of the security of the vaccinators dead -- were reported in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP) province.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, however suspicion is focusing on the outlawed Pakistani Taliban which have been involved in similar attacks during a decade.

The latest attack came days after two new cases of polio virus reported in Pakistan.

With the new cases, reported in the Bannu and North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the total number of polio cases reported in the country has risen to eight since the beginning of this year.

Six polio cases were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and tribal districts, while one case was reported in the Punjab and Sindh provinces each.

Pakistan is among three countries in the world, including Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio virus still exists and the country remains under a polio-linked travel restriction imposed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In 2014, the WHO made it mandatory for all people traveling from Pakistan to carry a polio vaccination certificate.

Armed assailants targeting vaccinators see the anti-polio campaigns are part of an elaborate anti-Muslim and Western conspiracy, and often issue death threats to vaccinators, many of whom are women, for administrating the vital vaccines to children.

According to Pakistani officials, around 88 people associated with the drive have been killed across Pakistan since December 2012.