• Gunmen kill 9 polio health workers in Nigeria, police say

    By Chukwuemeka Madu, Reuters

    KANO, Nigeria -- Gunmen on motorbikes shot dead nine health workers who were administering polio vaccinations in two separate attacks in Nigeria's main northern city of Kano Friday, police said.

    No one claimed responsibility but Islamist militant group Boko Haram -- a sect which has condemned the use of Western medicine -- has been blamed for carrying out a spate of assaults on security forces in the city in recent weeks.

    It is the second time this year that polio workers have come under attack by Islamist militants, after gunmen killed aid workers tackling the disease in Pakistan last month.

    Some influential Muslim leaders in Kano openly oppose polio vaccination, saying it is a conspiracy against Muslim children.

    The attacks will hit efforts by global health organizations to clear Nigeria's mostly-Muslim north of polio; a virus that can cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection.

    "Gunmen on bikes opened fire on a health center in the Hotoro district killing seven, while an attack on Zaria Road area of the city claimed two lives," said police spokesman Magaji Musa.

    "They were working for the state government giving out polio vaccinations at the time of the attack," Musa added.

    Kano government banned motorbikes from carrying passengers last month after the Emir of Kano, one of the country's most prominent leaders, was nearly killed when gunmen attacked his convoy, killing four of his aides.

    So far nine health workers have been murdered while walking door to door to deliver polio vaccines to children in need because some believe the immunizations are part of a U.S. plot. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

    Militants pose serious threat
    Boko Haram killed hundreds last year as part of its campaign to impose Islamic law, or sharia, on a country of 160 million, split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.

    The group is seen as the most serious threat to the stability of Africa's top energy producer, and Western governments fear the country could become a base for operations of al-Qaida-linked Islamist groups in the Sahara.

    President Goodluck Jonathan has highlighted links between Boko Haram and Saharan Islamists and said that relationship justified his decision to join efforts by French and West African forces to fight militants in Mali last month.

    In 2003, northern Nigeria's Muslim leaders opposed polio vaccinations, saying they could cause infertility and AIDS.

    Their campaign against the treatments was blamed for a resurgence of the disease in parts of Nigeria and other African countries previously declared polio-free.

    Polio, a virus that attacks the nervous system, crippled thousands of people every year in rich nations until the 1950s. As a result of vaccination, it is now only endemic in three countries -- Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.

    According to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, there were 121 new cases of polio in Nigeria last year, compared to 58 in Pakistan and 37 in Afghanistan.

    "This is certainly a setback for polio eradication in Nigeria, but not a stop," said Oyewale Tomori, a campaigner for polio eradication in Nigeria. "The best we can do is to work harder and see the end of polio ... so their loss will not end as a useless sacrifice."

    At least 16 health workers taking part in polio vaccination drives were killed in attacks in Pakistan in December and January.

    Local Taliban militants said they did not carry out those attacks although its leaders have repeatedly denounced the vaccination program as a plot to sterilize people or spy on Muslims.

    Related:

    Taliban bans Pakistan polio vaccinations over drone strikes

    Eight polio workers slain in Pakistan in just 48 hours

    Rumors of plot to sterilize Muslims with polio vaccine spark killings in Pakistan

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Rumors of plot to sterilize Muslims with polio vaccine spark killings in Pakistan

    So far nine health workers have been murdered while walking door to door to deliver polio vaccines to children in need because some believe the immunizations are part of a U.S. plot. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

    By Mushtaq Yusufzai and Waj S. Khan, NBC News

    Updated 8:00 p.m. ET: PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan may be one of the world's three remaining polio-stricken countries but Sartaj Khan has decided that the government-sponsored vaccination campaign is much more sinister than it appears.

    "These vaccines are meant to destroy our nation," said Khan, a 42-year-old lawyer in the city of Peshawar. "The [polio] drops make men less manly, and make women more excited and less bashful. Our enemies want to wipe us out."

    Khan is not alone in the belief, propagated by extremist groups, that is gaining currency in the Pashtun belt of northwestern Pakistan: The government’s anti-polio campaign is a ruse by the Americans to sterilize or spy on Muslims.

    Many also believe that much like the Pakistani physician, Dr. Shakeel Afridi, who helped the CIA run a fake vaccination program to establish the presence of Osama bin Laden, the army of health workers employed to vaccinate the country’s children are also on the United States’ payroll.

    The belief has turned deadly: Nine anti-polio workers have been killed by gunmen on motorcycles this week. Some of those killed were teenage girls. Following the violence, the United Nations pulled back all staff involved in the vaccination campaign and officials suspended it in some parts of the country.

    Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

    Muhammed Muheisen / AP

    Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

    Launch slideshow

    There are ranks of parents whose awareness is low and suspicions high when it comes to the deadly virus: A November World Health Organization study found that 41 percent of those polled had never heard of polio — and 11 percent refused to vaccinate their children. 

    The reality is that polio can paralyze or kill within hours of infection. It is transmitted person-to-person, meaning that as long as one child is infected, the disease can be passed to others. 

    Photos: Vaccination workers gunned down in Pakistan

    Nuclear-armed and militancy-struck Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the only countries still struggling with polio.  Extremists have opposed vaccination programs in Afghanistan and Nigeria, although they haven’t resorted to the sort of violence seen in Pakistan. According to the World Health Organization, there were 213 new cases of polio worldwide in 2012, including 56 in Pakistan.

    Mohsin Raza / Reuters

    A female polio worker gives polio vaccine drops to a child in Lahore, Pakistan, on Thursday.

    Polio also disproportionately affects members of the Pashtun population in Pakistan, who largely live in the country's northwest and border region. They account for roughly 15 percent of the population, but 75 percent of all polio cases.

    Shamim Bibi, a 25-year-old mother of two who has been working in Peshawar’s suburbs as an anti-polio campaign worker for the last nine years, said she had never before faced hostility in her line of work.

    "For years, we were welcomed into homes by families," she said. "In 2012, attitudes changed. Now, they look at us with a sort of suspicion. Some people have even said it to my face: that I’m an American spy."

    More Pakistan coverage from NBC News

    Suspicion of the United States does indeed run deep.  Unknown gunmen may have assassinated 14-year-old anti-polio worker Farzana Rehman in her hometown of Peshawar but her grieving father is placing the blame for her death further afield.


    "My daughter was too young to leave this world," an obviously distraught Said Rehman told NBC News. "Polio didn’t take her. This American war did. So what’s the bigger danger, huh?"

    The American war refers to the post-Sept. 11, 2001, violence that has swept Pakistan and Afghanistan, in particular U.S. drone strikes that enrage many.  In parts of Pakistan, the war is also called the Kharji, or "white person's" war.

    In Pakistan's largest city, 'Old Glory' is flammable and profitable 

    As experts cite the latest violence as a new form of "low tech, high concept" attacks by Pakistan’s militants, Rehman can only wonder if those trying to stop the disease are missing the point.

    "Disease didn’t take my child. A bullet did," he said. 

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    More world stories from NBC News:

    Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

     

  • Eight polio workers slain in Pakistan in just 48 hours

    After receiving threatening telephone calls warning they would regret helping the "infidel" campaign against polio, a group of woman, working on a UN-backed polio vaccination campaign, were shot and killed by gunmen a day after a similar slaying in Karachi. Ch4 Europe's Lindsey Hilsum reports. Warning: Some images maybe disturbing.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    Updated at 9:26 a.m. ET: PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Three workers in a polio eradication campaign were shot in Pakistan on Wednesday, and two of them were killed, the latest in a string of attacks that has partially halted the United Nations-backed global health campaign to stamp out the crippling disease.

    Following the violence, the United Nations in Pakistan has pulled all staff involved in the immunization campaign off the streets, spokesman Michael Coleman said.

    A senior World Health Organization (WHO) official told NBC News that 2,200 field workers had been directed to stop their operations.

    It is not clear exactly who is behind the violence but some Islamists, including Taliban militants, have long opposed the campaign, with some saying it is aimed at sterilizing Muslims.

    Wednesday saw at least three separate attacks. In the northwestern district of Charsadda, men on motorbikes shot dead a woman and her driver, police and health officials said.

    Hours earlier, a male health worker was shot and badly wounded in the nearby provincial capital of Peshawar. He remains in a critical condition, said a doctor at the hospital where he is being treated.

    Four other women health workers were shot at but not hit in nearby Nowshera, said Jan Baz Afridi, deputy head of WHO's Expanded Programme on Immunization.

    More Pakistan coverage from NBC News

    The Taliban have repeatedly issued threats against the polio eradication campaign and health workers said they received calls telling them to stop working with the "infidels."

    But a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Ihsanullah Ihsan, told Reuters his group was not involved in the violence.

    Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

    Muhammed Muheisen / AP

    Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

    Launch slideshow

    On Monday and Tuesday, six female health workers were killed in attacks in the southern port city of Karachi and in Peshawar. The youngest was 17.

    The shootings, five of which happened in Karachi, home to 18 million people, led provincial health authorities to suspend the polio eradication campaign in the province of Sindh.

    Generation Y battles to shape Pakistan's future

    But authorities in Khyber Paktunkhwa province, where the capital is Peshawar, said they would not accept a recommendation to suspend the campaign even as the United Nations ordered their staff to suspend work.


    "You know halting the campaign at this stage would create more problems as it's not a one-day phenomenon. If we stopped the campaign it would encourage the forces opposing the polio vaccination," said an official in the province, Javed Marwat.

    Despite this, many health workers told Reuters they would not be going to work until the security situation improved.

    The Taliban have repeatedly said the campaign is a Western conspiracy to sterilize or spy on Muslims or said the vaccinations could only continue if attacks by U.S. drone aircraft stopped.

    Their suspicions increased after it emerged that the CIA had used a fake vaccination campaign to try to gather information about Osama bin Laden, before he was found and killed in a northern Pakistani town last year.

    Aid workers become targets in Pakistan

    On Wednesday, Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf said the campaign needed to go on.

    "We cannot and would not allow polio to wreak havoc on the lives of our children," he said in a statement.

    Pakistan had 20,000 polio cases in 1994 but vigorous vaccination efforts had brought the number down to 56 in 2012, the statement said.

    Khuram Parvez / Reuters

    Hilal Khan, an anti-polio drive worker who was shot and badly injured by gunmen, is treated at a hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Wednesday.

    A global vaccination campaign has eradicated the disease from everywhere except Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

    Polio can paralyze or kill within hours of infection. It is transmitted person-to-person, meaning that as long as one child is infected, the disease can be passed to others.

    A recent WHO study found that 41 percent of those polled had never heard of polio.

    According to WHO's most recent stats, 213 new cases of polio have been reported worldwide in 2012 — including 56 in Pakistan.

    NBC News' Mushtaq Yusufzai and Amna Nawaz and Reuters contributed to this report.

    More world stories from NBC News:

    Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook


  • Polio vaccination workers gunned down in Pakistan

    Athar Hussain / Reuters

    Family members of Nasima Bibi, a female worker of an anti-polio drive campaign who was shot by gunmen, mourn at a hospital morgue in Karachi on Dec. 18.

    Rehan Khan / EPA

    A rescue worker ties the feet of one of the Polio vaccination workers at a mortuary.

    Reuters -- Gunmen shot five health workers on an anti-polio drive in a string of attacks in Pakistan on Tuesday, officials said, raising fears for the safety of workers immunizing children against the crippling disease.

    It was not clear who was behind the shootings, but Taliban insurgents have repeatedly denounced the anti-polio campaign as a Western plot.

    Health officials suspended the immunization campaign in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city of 18 million people. Continue reading.

    Previously on PhotoBlog:

    Rizwan Tabassum / AFP - Getty Images

    A Pakistani mother mourns over her daughter, who was killed while on the job as a polio vaccination worker, at a hospital morgue following an attack by gunmen in Karachi on Dec. 18. Gunmen on motorbikes shot dead five female Pakistani polio vaccination workers on Tuesday, police said, highlighting resistance to the country's immunization campaign. Four were killed in three different incidents in the sprawling port city and the fifth in the northwestern city of Peshawar, on the second day of a nationwide three-day drive against the disease, which is endemic in Pakistan.

     

    Fareed Khan / AP

    Pakistani rescue workers carry the dead body of a female polio worker, killed by unknown gunmen, at the morgue of local hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, on Dec. 18. Gunmen killed several people working on a government polio vaccination campaign in two different Pakistani cities on Tuesday, officials said. The attacks were likely an attempt by the Taliban to counter an initiative the militant group has long opposed.

     

    Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

    Muhammed Muheisen / AP

    Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

    Launch slideshow

  • Pakistan distributes polio vaccine

    K.M.Chaudary / AP

    A Pakistani health worker marks an infant after immunization with anti-polio drops in Lahore, Pakistan on March 12. Pakistani officials vow to eradicate polio by the end of 2012. Polio remains endemic in four countries – Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

    K.M.Chaudary / AP

    Residents living in the suburbs of Lahore, Pakistan carry their children to have polio drops administered to them on Monday, March 12. Pakistani officials vow to eradicate polio by the end of 2012. Polio remains endemic in four countries – Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan

    Arshad Arbab / EPA

    A woman holds her child as she waits for a polio vaccination in Peshawar, Pakistan, on March 12. Reports state that polio cases over last month has taken the country's total number of poliomyelitis-affected children to five in 2012, officials said. Most of the 198 cases recorded in 2011 were notified in the north western part of the country where local religious clerics and pro-Taliban lobby are reportedly trying to convince residents that the US-manufactured polio drops were designed to sterilize Pakistanis and reduce the Muslim population.