# 8201
This headline is sadly becoming all too common, as once again attacks on polio workers have claimed multiple lives in Pakistan. This report from The Hindu.
Updated: January 21, 2014 20:00 IST
Three polio workers killed in Karachi
Armed men on motorcycles opened fire on a polio team in Karachi fatally injuring three members including two women, in Qayyumabad area in Karachi East on Tuesday.
The polio vaccination drive had entered its second day today and now the members are unwilling to go ahead with the drive, according to unofficial sources. The polio team comprising four people was targeted while they were administering the oral polio vaccine in a crowded area of the city.
Sindh province reported six cases of the total 91 in 2013 and four of them were from Karachi. The polio drive was aimed at immunising over seven million children and was to continue for a couple of days.
The campaign against immunization by the Taliban began eight years ago, but appears to have gained greater ferocity after it was disclosed that a sham hepatitis vaccination campaign was used as a CIA cover in the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden (see Maryn McKenna’s Update: Pakistan, Polio, Fake Vaccines And The CIA).
Additionally, many believe that vaccinations are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslims, a notion that some local clerics have helped foster.
The recent detection of Polio in Syria (see WHO: Update On Polio Detection In Syria) has been genetically linked to a poliovirus circulating in Pakistan, making the containment and eradication of this virus in that country a global concern.
