LAHORE: A polio vaccination worker was injured when an unidentified gunman opened fire on him in Chobarji area of Lahore on Wednesday, officials said.
Health worker Umer Khan Afridi was on regular duty on the final day of the polio vaccination campaign in Lahore when a masked gunman riding a motorcycle opened fire on him in Chobarji area. The bullet hit Afridi in the leg.
According to officials at the Mayo hospital, the condition of the injured health worker was stable and out of danger.
Officials said it was unclear who was behind the shooting.
The DCO Lahore said that the incident appeared to be a result of personal enmity, ruling out the possibility that it was an attack on the polio vaccination campaign in the city. He said that the polio vaccination campaign would continue across the city unaffected.
More than 100,000 health workers fanned out across Pakistan this week, stepping up a drive to eliminate the polio virus this year from the country, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the world's cases of the virus.
More than 4,000 vaccinators are working in Lahore alone and each team is assigned two police officers for security.
Polio, which can cause lifelong paralysis, is now endemic in only two countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistan's polio cases are declining, with just 54 cases of polio virus reported last year, down more than 80 percent from 2014, when the country suffered a large spike in cases.
The latest immunisation push aims to finish vaccinating every child in the country by the end of May.
Efforts to eliminate polio in Pakistan have been complicated in recent years, as polio workers have faced attacks by militants who say the health teams are Western spies, or that the vaccines they administer are intended to sterilise children.