A man working for the World health Organization (WHO) on the campaign to eradicate polio was shot dead in Karachi, Pakistan, on the evening of 20 July. Muhammad Ishaq was shot outside his clinic in a slum in Karachi rough known as Gadap. Ishaq, who was the local community, died en route to hospital.
only 3 days earlier, two gunmen killed a Ghanaian doctor working for WHO and his Pakistani driver, participating in a national campaign of vaccination against polio in their car. The doctor was shot in the stomach; the pilot suffered a grazing wound on his shoulder. The two men are recovering.
After the first shot, the WHO has canceled the rest of the vaccination campaign in Gadap and implemented increased security measures instead.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the shooting and there is no definitive evidence linking the two events, said Bruce Aylward, WHO Deputy Director General and longtime leader of global Initiative to eradicate polio. Similarly, it is unclear whether the shooting was random or polio workers targeted specifically. Until they get more evidence, said Aylward, "Our working hypothesis is that [the shootings] may be linked, and that affects our approach to security."
is Gadap slum densely populated with a large minority and migrant population. most residents of the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, where opposition to a government-run or a Western program is intense rumors abound that the vaccine against polio is dangerous and is part of a US campaign to sterilize Muslim children. About a month earlier, a leader of a faction of the Taliban in North Waziristan banned vaccination against polio in its part of the tribal area to stop the US drone strikes.
Expressing deep sadness, the WHO issued a statement saying that the shooting will not distract from the state progress of Pakistan made in its fight to eradicate polio. Pakistan and Afghanistan and Nigeria, is one of three so-called endemic countries where polio transmission has never been interrupted.
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