Pakistan polio vaccination workers targeted in fresh attacks; 7 now killed

Pakistani rescue workers carry the body of a female polio worker, killed by unknown gunmen, at the morgue of local hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, Dec. 18, 2012. / AP

Updated at 11:08 a.m. Eastern

PESHAWAR, Pakistan Gunmen shot dead a woman working on U.N.-backed polio vaccination efforts and her driver in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said, just a day after similar attacks across the country killed five female polio workers.

The killings are a major setback for a campaign that international health officials consider vital to contain the crippling disease but which Taliban insurgents say is a cover for espionage.

In Wednesday's attack, the woman and her driver were gunned down in the northwestern town of Charsadda, said senior government official Syed Zafar Ali Shah. He said gunmen targeted two other polio teams in the same town, but no one was wounded in those attacks.

Earlier in the day in the northwestern city of Peshawar, gunmen shot a polio worker in the head, wounding him critically, said Janbaz Afridi, a senior health official. There were also attacks Wednesday on polio workers in the cities of Charsadda and Nowshera, but no casualties were reported there.

Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is endemic.

UINCEF and the WHO said Wednesday that the organizations would implement, "additional security protocols to ensure the safety and security of their polio workers."

But Bushra Arain, chair of the All Pakistan Lady Health Worker's Welfare Association - the national body which represents the workers actually do the majority of the field work for the vaccination program, told CBS News on Wednesday that all field work was being halted.

"The government has to take full responsibility for our security," Arain told CBS News' Bokhari. "We will not do any field work. If the assassins are not arrested before the 22nd (December)... we will hold a large protest in Islamabad."

Janbaz Afridi, a senior health official, said the latest attacks took place in Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera cities.

A Pakistani mother mourns her daughter, who was killed working for a polio vaccination program in an attack by gunmen in Karachi, Dec. 18, 2012.

/ Getty

The Taliban has spread accusations that the U.N. health workers are actually acting as spies for the U.S., and that the vaccine is really a ploy to render Muslim children sterile.

"It's a very grim situation," a government official in the provincial government where the attacks occurred told CBS News on Wednesday. "The Taliban are making certain that this (anti-polio) campaign fails completely."

The Taliban's CIA spy rumor was already circulating before a Pakistani doctor who set up a fake vaccination program was exposed as a CIA operative in 2011, but his story has increased skepticism over the U.N. program, particularly in rural communities, a senior official with Pakistan's Health Ministry told Bokhari.

Dr. Shakil Afridi was arrested by Pakistani police and intelligence agencies following the May 2011 raid by a U.S. Navy SEAL team, which ended in bin Laden's death. Afridi worked with the CIA in its effort to locate bin Laden, but Pakistani officials insisted to CBS News in May 2012 that he was sentenced to 33 years for conspiring with a prominent Islamic militant, not for the assistance he provided to the CIA.

Pakistan's government and military were hugely embarrassed and angered by the U.S. raid -- of which they had no prior knowledge -- and his arrest is widely believed to be directly related to his relationship with the American spy agency.

The U.S. government has called for Afridi's release.

Pakistani officials initially said Afridi's arrest was tied to the fake vaccination program he ran in the months leading up to bin Laden's killing, which attempted to obtained blood samples from some of bin Laden's family members to establish his presence.

However, two nurses who work at a local clinic in Abbottabad have told CBS News that they were repeatedly asked by Afridi to gather blood samples from the bin Laden compound, but never managed to get in the door -- casting doubt on the level to which Afridi's efforts yielded results for the CIA.

[CaiusKeys]

This is just great -- apparently Pakistan, to whom the US gives billions, is now pro-polio.

[adrade]

You can't be serious. That's like saying that the US is pro-idiocy because of our outspoken religious right.

[Sassytooyou]

This action is not the face of Islam. In every religion there are those that use religion to promote there political cause. There was the spanish inquisition for the catholics, Henry the 8th created an entirely new church for his. The puritins executed inocent people as witches, need I go on. The extreme are extreme because they are a minority point of view and it is the only way to control the masses which is through fear. Be in prayer for the innocent.

[lemac747]

And still the pentagon is going to reimburse the pakistani Gov. 650 million dollars for stationing 120,000 troops on the Afghan border. Not to mention the 500 dollar per truck toll we are paying to cross this same border and oh most of that money ends up in taliban pockets. And we are broke!

[ginevsky]

They believe that polio is a western myth just like the holocaust. The exercise of ignorant brutish force is appalling to the civilized world. It encourages our own brutish stupidity

[ThomasTetreault]

I'm a polio survivor. Fifty seven years and counting. It's hard to express how profoundly sad this makes me.Killed for preventing polio-can't quite wrap my head around that.

[john92021]

if you get polio you are not going to be a very good jihadist.That sounds like a good thing. You can't reason with stupidity. Refuse to give any Pakistanis visas due to health concerns.

[Jay_Breakman]

Seem that they have something in common with our media.

They are hungry for rating or in there case attention.

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

It is sad but this surprises me none. Whatever it takes to get attention. Ask any pop star or taliban near you.

[lloydbest1]

Yeah, the problem with that is not all polio infections are symptomatic; that's to say not everyone who is infected with it gets sick. But everyone who gets infected CAN spread it and sicken others. This is what the Taliban is banking on. They are taking a big chance that some unknown number of those under its control will escape the worst of polio's effects and go on to spread it, unknowingly in most cases, in many parts of the world where it is not now endemic.
What I'm saying is it is entirely possible the Taliban know that a successful vaccination program in their sphere of influence will put a serious crimp in any plans they have made or will make to use polio as a bio weapon. And they are fully aware that the UN efforts are on the up and up; but even IF the U.N. is using the vaccination workers as spies, that's not the main reason for their assaults on them.
Refusing visas to Pakistanis due to health concerns will only keep them from spreading it here and other countries who are polio free but also have no vacination program. It will not stop Kazakhs, Afghans, unlucky Iranians and other neighbors close to the madness from acting as unwitting instruments of their germ warfare campaign.
It is also worthy of note that six of the seven aid workers were women. Given the archaic view the Taliban hierarchy has on women in general and educated women in particular, I don't think this is a coincidence.

[joesapper]

An old common remark that has been applied to everything from trucks to horses to the enemy , "Know the nature of the beast" , apply this to those that shoot a school girl fo no other reason other than going to class .

Was this attack on aid workers surprising , NO .

Was this attack a matter of mindset or a matter of nature found in the core of the beast within ?

Many are speaking out in Pakistan , but a large number of these that speak out also support many of the basics of those that commit such attacks , good luck .

[sickofwhiners]

All workers should be pulled from Pakistan right now and let them deal with the polio.