Madiha was the only source of income for the family, which includes seven other children, said Bibi, whose husband is too sick to work.
The woman who was killed in the northwest was also a teenager and was shot by gunmen on a motorcycle as she was working with her sister in the village of Shinkai Hindkian, said Afridi, the local health official. She was rushed to the hospital after the attack but eventually died from her injuries, said Afridi.
Another official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, said the woman was shot by her cousin because of a family dispute. He said she was working on the anti-polio campaign at the time, but he claimed the two things were unrelated.
Polio usually infects children living in unsanitary conditions, attacks the nerves and can kill or paralyze. Most of the new cases in Pakistan are in the northwest, where the presence of militants makes it difficult to reach children. A total of 56 polio cases were reported in Pakistan during 2012, said Ahmed, the Sindh health minister.
Despite the obstacles, the government has teamed up with U.N. agencies to give oral polio drops to 34 million children under the age of five. Clerics and tribal elders have been recruited to support polio vaccinations in an attempt to open up areas previously inaccessible to health workers
Also Tuesday, two men on a motorcycle hurled hand grenades at the main gate of an army recruiting center in the northwestern town of Risalpur, wounding 10 people, including civilians and security personnel, said senior police official Ghulam Mohammed.
Gunmen on a motorcycle also shot a member of an anti-Taliban militia in the northwest Swat Valley, said senior police official Gul Afzal Khan.
Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for both attacks by telephone to The Associated Press.
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Abbot reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Jamal Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, Sherin Zada in Mingora, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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