WHO suspends op in Balochistan after attack on polio team

The WHO today suspended its activities in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province due to security concerns after four members of a polio vaccination team were gunned down by militants, in one of the deadliest attacks on medical workers in the region.

The attack happened yesterday on the eastern outskirts of provincial capital Quetta when a team of seven polio workers was getting ready to launch the fourth and final day of the campaign when two men riding a motorbike opened fire on their vehicle, killing four.

A health official from Quetta said that the World Health Organisation has suspended its operations in Balochistan due to security threats to polio workers."The WHO has decided to stop its work until the government addresses their security concerns," he said.

Unicef has also scaled down its activities in Baluchistan due to security threats to its staff, another official said.

The WHO and the United Nations International Children's Educational Fund have been assisting the provincial government of Baluchistan in eradicating polio virus from the province for more than twenty years.

After the yesterday's deadly attack, polio vaccinators refused to go back to work unless they are assured of greater security. Meanwhile, Chief minister Abdul Malik Baloch ordered a probe into the attack.

Inspector General Police Balochistan, Amlaish Khan has suspended Deputy Superintendent of Police Shafqat Amer and an SHO for their failure to prevent the attack.

According to officials, the IG has informed a high-level meeting that the polio workers were killed because of negligence of the policemen who were giving security to the medical workers.

A polio vaccination campaign was launched earlier this month amid tight security in 11 districts of Balochistan, Pakistan's largest but least developed and most sparsely populated province.

Pakistan government has come under criticism for doing little to eradicate the virus.

Polio is still endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. The number of polio cases recorded in Pakistan has reached 246 for the year -- a 14-year high and more than double the total for the whole of 2013.

Attempts to stamp it out have been badly hit by opposition from militants and attacks on immunisation teams, which have claimed more than 60 lives in the last two years.