ISLAMABAD — The World Health Organization said Friday that three more polio cases have surfaced in Pakistan, raising the number of new cases to 220, a record figure that authorities blame on attacks by insurgents targeting vaccination teams.
The WHO statement came as many nations observed World Polio Day to raise awareness about the highly contagious virus, which is transmitted in unsanitary conditions but is easily fended off with a vaccine. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the only countries where polio, which can cause paralysis and death, remains endemic.
Dr. Elias Durry, who heads WHO polio eradication efforts in Pakistan, said Friday that out of 220 cases most were detected from January to October in the county’s northwest, where the Pakistani Taliban have fought to prevent immunizations.
The Pakistani Taliban accuse polio workers of acting as spies for the United States and say the vaccine makes boys sterile. The insurgents began targeting vaccinationteams after it was revealed
that a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, administered hepatitis vaccinations in the northwestern city of Abbottabad as a cover for a CIA-backed effort to obtain DNA samples from a home where Osama bin Laden was later killed.