Pakistan police officer killed in attack by gunmen on a polio vaccine team

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Suspected militants shot dead a policeman guarding a team of polio specialists in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, the latest in a series of attacks on vaccination teams in the country.

The attack took place in the Matta region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, once a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, a day after Pakistan launched a week-long national vaccination campaign aimed at inoculating 45 million children.

Local police chief Javed Khan said a team of women polio workers were administering drops to children in a house when “terrorists on motorcycles opened fire” and killed the police officer. He said a search operation was underway to locate and apprehend the attackers.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack in a statement and promised tough action against those responsible.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion will likely fall on activists who frequently target health workers and the police charged with protecting them.

More than 200 polio workers and police officers who protected them have been killed in Pakistan since the 1990s, according to health and security officials. Activists often falsely claim that vaccination campaigns are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children.

Since January, Pakistan has reported 29 cases of polio. During the current campaign, more than 400,000 trained workers are going door to door to vaccinate children.

Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries where transmission of wild poliovirus has never been stopped, according to the World Health Organization.