Pakistan committed to ending polio this year: PM

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Friday said Pakistan was committed to eradicating polio by the end of 2012 and would use all resources to rid the country of the crippling disease.
He was talking to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bill Gates, who contributes $1 billion annually to the eradication of polio globally, and has made it a top priority of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Gates, whose foundation has spent more than $85 million on the polio eradication programme in Pakistan, had stressed the need to expand the Polio Eradication Programme in Pakistan.
He was keen to hear the ways Gilani’s government was surmounting the difficulties in this effort and to reach out to remote areas of the country. Gilani said he was personally supervising the polio eradication efforts and had also asked the provinces to double their efforts towards making Pakistan a polio-free country.
The prime minister said he had spelt it out that all measures be taken to eradicate the crippling disease from the country by end of 2012.
He also praised Gates for his efforts to provide medical treatment to Arfa Karim Randhawa, the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in the world.
He said Pakistan has named IT educational institutions after her and invited Gates to help set up high quality education houses for the youth in the country.
The prime minister recalled his joint press interaction on the issue with prime ministers of Britain, Canada, Australia and the president of Nigeria at the Commonwealth Summit in Perth, and said Pakistan was among the few countries, still confronting the deadly disease.
Gilani said he informed the world leaders that Pakistan was taking all measures and employing innovative strategies to stop the spread of the virus. He said the world leaders ha pledged $122 million in new funds towards a polio-free world.
He said surveillance officers had been appointed in high-risk areas to strengthen the implementation process, and a polio monitoring cell had also been set up in his Secretariat which was providing regular updates to him.
Briefing the reporters after the meeting, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said the prime minister praised the Gates Foundation for its very active role in Pakistan and the efforts focused to help rid the country of the disease.
He said Bill expressed resolve to continuing with his support to Pakistan for eradication of polio from the country.
He said the issue of potential collaboration in the fields of health sciences and agriculture productivity also came under discussion.