Terming the War against Terror as a major obstacle in Pakistan’s polio eradication drive, particularly in areas bordering Afghanistan, Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Hazar Bijarani on Saturday invited planners and managers from all over the world to assist in curbing this menace. He was addressing a session of the Polio Summit 2012 “Seeking Polio Free World-Progress and the way forward.”
“One major obstacle is Pakistan’s fight against terror, which has made a number of areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan bordering Afghanistan as highly volatile. Resultantly it is not possible for health workers and vaccinators to reach all children in all areas to administer polio drops to them,” he said. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated the summit, which was jointly organised by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India and Rotary International. Bijarani said that Pakistan was one of the four endemic countries, which were seriously engaged in a relentless struggle to fight this crippling disease, adding that India, which was one of the most populous countries, had done a marvelous job by bringing the number of polio cases to zero during last year. “We are doing our best to follow its (Indian) footprints and rid Pakistan of polio”, he said, adding that there were multiple factors, which were creating hurdles in the way of Pakistan’s Polio Eradication effort.