(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
The United States government says the US will no longer use vaccination programs as cover for spying, after the CIA used a fake polio program to hunt down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
The country is suffering a resurgence of polio after Islamic militants started killing workers vaccinating children.
Gary Cox reports.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
Polio is a crippling viral disease, preying on children under five.
Pakistan was close to erradicating it 10 years ago, thanks to vaccination programs.
That changed when the CIA was exposed for using a fake vaccine project to collect DNA and find Osama Bin Laden.
Tim O'Connor from UNICEF Australia says the CIA put children at risk.
"UNICEF welcomes the CIA's commitment not to use any of these tactics anymore and we think it is long overdue and it's certainly been an impingement upon public health.
The Taliban has killed 56 polio workers since December 2012, as potential spies.
Now White House anti-terrorism advisor, Lisa Monaco, has revealed the CIA last year directed its agents to stop the practice.
She says the CIA would make no operational use of vaccination programs.
Nor would it seek to obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material acquired through such programs.
The World Health Organisation warns that polio has re-emerged as a public health emergency - with the virus affecting 10 countries worldwide and becoming endemic in three, including Pakistan.
Fifty nine of the world's 79 registered polio cases this year came from Pakistan.
Tim O'Connor, who lost colleagues fighting polio, says there has been a spike this year.
And he says while security has been a factor, the CIA program has also had a negative effect.
"The suspicion around immunisation that has been perpetrated by these sorts of tactics used by the CIA have certainly not helped.
Last week Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan rolled out the army for a so called "War on Polio"
"Whether it is Karatchi, whether it is north western frontier province, or any other part of Pakistan, we are going to tackle this head on."
But Tim O'Connor says public trust has been tested and a heavily armed military escorting health workers poses its own problems.
"We need to do everything we can to ensure those people are safe but we also need to get the message out that this is a public health exercise and not a military one."
Under Pakistani law children in the tribal belt can't leave the region without being vaccinated, while only immunised adults are allowed to travel abroad.
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