Gunmen have shot and killed a mother and her daughter who were working for an anti-polio campaign under way in Pakistan’s south-western city of Quetta, police said.

Nigerian military helicopters have rushed polio vaccines to dangerous parts of the country's north east, where Boko Haram operates and where two toddlers paralysed by the virus were recently discovered, health officials said.

Gunmen on motorcycles have shot and killed seven Pakistani police officers involved in a polio vaccination campaign in two separate attacks in the port city of Karachi.

Bill Gates salutes as his heroes the health and education workers whose vaccine programmes are on the brink of wiping out forever the debilitating, often deadly, disease.

It’s nearly 60 years since the polio epidemic struck fear into the heart of middle Ireland. It’s still not over, says Aileen Lee, for the hundreds of sufferers still affected by the disease