Death toll from Pakistan polio worker attacks rises

The death toll from a string of attacks on polio vaccination teams in Pakistan this week rose to nine on Thursday, as a wounded health worker succumbed to his injuries in hospital. Bloodshed marred every day of a UN-backed immunisation drive this week, with health volunteers shot by gunmen on motorbikes in Karachi and several towns in the country's northwest. Mohammad Hilal, who was shot in the head on Wednesday while helping distribute polio drops on the edge of Peshawar, the main city of the northwest, died of his injuries on Thursday, senior polio official Janbaz Afridi told AFP. Doctors said 21-year-old student Hilal was "medically dead" on Wednesday evening but kept alive overnight by life-support equipment. The bloodshed prompted the UN children's agency UNICEF and the World Health Organisation to suspend work on polio campaigns across Pakistan, which is one of only three countries in the world where the disease remains endemic. Efforts to stamp out the highly infectious crippling disease have been hampered by rumours about the vaccine and resistance from the Taliban, who have condemned the polio campaign as a cover for espionage.