One million Pak children miss polio vaccination

Almost one million Pakistani children were left out of a polio vaccination drive which ended on Thursday, officials said, as unrest and flooding limited access and some parents viewed the campaign as a Western ‘conspiracy’. Data obtained by AFP showed that some 998,569 children of the 32 million targeted during the three-day nationwide drive, backed by the government and World Health Organization, were left unvaccinated against the crippling disease. Last year, a Pakistani doctor was jailed for helping the CIA track down Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden using a fake hepatitis vaccination programme, leading the Taliban to ban immunisation in some areas.