Expat doctor injured in Pakistan shooting Since the September 11 attacks, militant Islamists have spread rumours that that polio vaccinations are part of a Western plot to sterilise the population. The CIA's fake vaccination campaign, used as a cover for the hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the northern town of Abbottabad, further damaged trust in all vaccinations. Only the day before the attack on the WHO workers, the Taliban reiterated a ban on polio immunisation in Pakistan's restive north-west tribal areas, refusing to allow vaccinations until the US ended drone strikes in the region. Last year, there was a significant rise in cases of polio in Pakistan to 198, from only 144 the year before. WHO estimates that failure to stamp out the virus, which mainly affects the under-fives, could lead to as many as 200,000 children across the world being crippled in the next decade.