DHAKA: Six people including four police were killed and 12 others injured in a bombing that targeted polio workers in northwest Pakistan on Monday.

The blast took place on the outskirts of the violence-plagued city of Peshawar.

The senior superintendent of police Najeeb-Ur-Rehman said that the bomb was remotely detonated as polio vaccines and accompanying materials were being handed out to health workers.

It wasn`t immediately clear if the Taliban played a role in Sunday`s attacks.

Pakistan is one of three countries in the world where polio has yet to be eradicated.

Polio, a highly infectious viral disease that can cause permanent paralysis in a matter of hours, has been eradicated around the world except for three countries where it is endemic: Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan.

Many Pakistanis have viewed polio vaccination campaigns with suspicion after the CIA`s use of a fake vaccination program in 2011 to collect DNA samples from residents of Osama bin Laden`s compound to verify the al Qaeda leader`s presence there.

Source: CNN
BDST: 1329 HRS, OCT 07, 2013
SR/AKA/BSK