Four more Polio-Plus Volunteer Health Workers Murdered In Rural Pakistan.

Volunteers carry an injured polio-vaccination worker to a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, on Nov. 26 after gunmen attacked a vaccination team, killing four. (Arshad Butt / Associated Press)

 

Yesterday,  November 26, 2014 four more volunteer health workers were gunned down in rural Pakistan. This brings the death toll among anti-polio volunteers to 65 since the first attack in December 2012. Three of the dead were women volunteers.

The attackers opened fire on the volunteers’ vehicle once they ascertained that they were involved in the anti-polio campaign. The number of new Pakistani polio cases so far this year is 260, which is four times as many as at the same time last year.

Pakistan’s militants have seen it as an opportunity to strike at symbols of authority, portraying the workers as agents in a "sinister Western plot".   Mr. Aziz Memon, who leads Rotary International’s immunization efforts in Pakistan stated that “It’s not just polio — they want to disrupt all government activities,”   (Rotarians are committed to the Polio plus program) and -  “The children of this country should walk, not crawl. We promised to end this, and we will.” he said.

 The other two countries where polio is endemic are, Afghanistan with 21 new cases, and Nigeria,  with six cases. In the last two years two health workers have delivered 450 million doses of vaccine, said Dr. Durry of the W.H.O.