Pakistan has recorded its highest
number of new polio cases for 15 years, and is now one of only three countries
in the world where the disease remains endemic. Health officials say the main
reason is the killing of health workers carrying out immunisation programmes by
Islamic extremists.
The extremists say the health
workers are spies and that the immunisations are a Western plot to sterilise
Muslims. They claim the US used a fake vaccination programme to track down and
kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.
The latest murder happened in the north-eastern
city of Faisalabad where a 40 year old man was shot down by attackers on a
motorcycle. Deaths among immunisation workers or police guarding them now
number more than 60 over the last two years.
One
result is that the World Health Organization has imposed travel restrictions, so
that all Pakistanis must now carry proof of vaccination before going abroad.
(See also by blogs of 24 February and 3 March.)
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