Another victim from attacks on U.N.-backed anti-polio teams in Pakistan died on Thursday, bringing the three-day death toll in the wave of assaults on volunteers vaccinating children across the country to nine, AP quoted officials as saying. Hilal Khan, 20, died a day after he was shot in the head in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said health official Janbaz Afridi Since Monday, gunmen had launched attacks across Pakistan on teams vaccinating children against polio. Six women were among the nine anti-polio workers killed in the campaign, jointly conducted with the Pakistani government. The U.N. suspended the drive until a government investigation was completed. The suspension was a grave blow to efforts to bring an end to the scourge of polio in Pakistan, one of only three countries where the crippling disease is endemic. "The security situation is being analyzed and reviewed in consultation with the Pakistani government," said Azmat Abbas, a UNICEF spokesman. He added that the field staff will resume the vaccinations when they have a secure working environment. "This is undoubtedly a tragic setback, but the campaign to eradicate polio will and must continue," Sarah Crowe, spokeswoman for UNICEF, said on Wednesday. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but some Islamic militants accuse health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and claim that the vaccine makes children sterile. Taliban commanders in the country's troubled northwest tribal region have also said the vaccinations can't go forward until the U.S. stops drone strikes in Pakistan. The insurgent opposition to the campaign grew last year, after it was revealed that a Pakistani doctor ran a fake vaccination program to help the CIA track down and kill al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in the town of Abbottabad in the country's northwest. Prevention efforts against polio have managed to reduce the number of cases in Pakistan by around 70 percent this year, compared to 2011, but the recent violence threatens to reverse that progress.
