Pakistan halts vaccinations in Karachi after deaths of health workers

Pakistan ended a polio vaccination program in Karachi Tuesday after three healthcare workers were killed by suspected Taliban gunmen, officials say. Suspension of the program ends the hope of health officials in the region to vaccinate 7.6 million children against the crippling disease by the end of the month, the Financial Times reported. The government was forced to suspend the program after other health workers refused to continue working after their colleagues were shot. The polio team in Karachi was working without any security when it was attacked. Three members of the team were killed, and at least two others were injured, the Wall St. Journal reported. Four armed men had been waiting in the area and shot at the health workers when it entered the neighborhood. "There were four men on two motor bikes armed with pistols," Raja Umar Khattab, a senior investigator with the police's anti-terrorist Crime Investigation Department unit, told the Journal. Attacks also occurred in Mansehra and Panjgur, the Express Tribune reported. In Mansehra, gunmen killed one worker, and in Panjgur, attackers stole a car from a polio team. There was no indication whether vaccinations in those cities were also suspended. Tahir Ashrafi, a moderate Islamic scholar, blamed the Pakistani government for the deaths of the healthcare workers. "It is the duty of the state to provide full protection to health workers," he said. "To say that the campaign cannot carry on because of these threats is rubbish. Ultimately, the government has to be more aggressive." Hardline Islamists in Pakistan have denounced the program as a secret plan by the West to sterilize Muslim children, the Times reported. The Taliban has opposed the program "to prove a bigger point, which is that they have the capacity to bring the Pakistani government on to its knees, even on a matter like polio," a Pakistani health official said. Before Tuesday's attacks, at least 29 people working with polio teams have been killed since mid-2012. Most of the attacks in Karachi have occurred in the outskirts of the city in areas that the militants control, the Express Tribune said. Seven polio cases were reported in Karachi in 2013.