By Aamir Latif
KARACHI
Four polio vaccinators, including three women, were killed and two others were injured Wednesday in an armed attack in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern Baluchistan province, police said.
The incident, the latest in a string of attacks on polio vaccinators across Pakistan, is yet another setback in the government's desperate efforts to curb the crippling disease.
Eyewitnesses told police that two armed bikers had opened fire on a van carrying polio vaccinators at the eastern bypass of Quetta on Wednesday morning.
Two vaccinators were killed on the spot while two others were pronounced dead at the hospital, Imran Qureshi, a city police chief told The Anadolu Agency.
Pakistan is one of three countries, including Nigeria and Afghanistan, where the polio virus is endemic.
The South Asian Muslim state has already been placed under World Health Organization travel restrictions in June, in a bid to contain the spread of polio.
Some 254 polio cases – 80 percent from the northwestern tribal belt, which is plagued by constant fighting – have been reported in Pakistan this year.
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