The health of hundreds of thousands of children has been put at risk after the Taliban announced a ban on a polio immunisation campaign in the country's tribal areas to protest against US airstrikes.

Pakistan is one of only three countries where the disease is endemic. It usually infects children living in unsanitary conditions. A total of 145,000 children in North Waziristan and 81,000 in South Waziristan were supposed to be immunised. Such programmes have come under suspicion since it became known a Pakistani doctor ran a fake vaccination programme to help the CIA track down Osama bin Laden.