The UN children's agency UNICEF and the World Health Organisation have suspended work on campaigns against polio in Pakistan after a series of attacks left nine health workers dead in three days.

UNICEF halted polio work in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces on Tuesday after attacks in Karachi and Peshawar, but extended the suspension nationwide after fresh bloodshed on Wednesday.In the latest violence, a female health worker and her driver were shot dead in Charsadda, near Peshawar, officials said, while another worker shot and critically wounded in an earlier attack also died.Pakistan, one of only three countries in the world where polio remains endemic, launched a three-day nationwide immunisation campaign, supported by the UN, to tackle the crippling disease on Monday.But violence has blighted every day of the campaign so far.One health worker was shot dead in Karachi on Monday.

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