UPDATE 3-Three more polio workers shot in Pakistan; eight dead in 48 hours

Dec 19 (Reuters) - Three workers in a polio eradication campaign were shot in Pakistan on Wednesday, and two of them were killed, the latest in an unprecedented string of attacks over the past three days that has partially halted the U.N.-backed campaign.

The United Nations in Pakistan has pulled all staff involved in the campaign off the streets, spokesman Michael Coleman said.

The government said immunization was continuing in some areas without U.N. support although many workers refused to go out. Women health workers held protests in the southern city of Karachi and in the capital, Islamabad.

“We go out and risk our lives to save other people’s children from being permanently handicapped, for what? So that our own children become orphans?” health worker Ambreen Bibi said at the Islamabad protest.