UN suspends Pakistan polio vaccination drive

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- The United Nations suspended its polio vaccination drive in Pakistan yesterday after eight people involved in the effort were shot dead in the past two days, a UN official said.

The suspension was a grave blow to the drive to bring an end to the scourge of polio in Pakistan, one of only three countries where the crippling disease survives.

Yesterday, gunmen shot at a woman working on the campaign in northwest Pakistan, killing her and her driver, one of five attacks during the day on polio workers. A male immunization worker was critically wounded in one shooting.

This week six other people working on the immunization program have been killed. The program has been conducted jointly with the Pakistani government. No one has claimed responsibility, but some Islamic extremists charge that the program is a cover for espionage.

At the UN, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the killing as "cruel, senseless and inexcusable." He said the eight workers were among thousands across Pakistan "working selflessly to achieve the historic goal of polio eradication."

Sarah Crowe, speaking for UNICEF, said the vaccination program has been suspended everywhere in Pakistan until the government completes an investigation. "This is undoubtedly a tragic setback, but the campaign to eradicate polio will and must continue," she said.

Some provincial governments in Pakistan continued to immunize children, independent of the UN drive.

Suspicion for the attacks has fallen on the Taliban, who virulently oppose the polio campaign, but the group's spokesman, Ahsanullah Ahsan, denied responsibility in a telephone call to The Associated Press. Police say they have killed two militant suspects and arrested a dozen others in connection to the attacks but did not say whether they were Taliban.

Militants accuse health workers of acting as spies for the United States, and claim the vaccine makes children sterile. Taliban commanders in the northwest tribal region have also said vaccinations can't go forward until the United States stops drone strikes in the country.

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.