A special polio eradication drive continued on Wednesday in 82 districts of the country to vaccinate over 16 million children of under five-year age. According to an official of Polio Eradication Programme, the campaign activities are being covered by more than 45,000vaccination teams besides area supervisors. He said with strong ownership at all levels and the engagement of communities, all children can be reached and thousands saved from being permanently crippled or dying of polio.
He said the government and development partners are putting all efforts to make Pakistan a polio-free country and sought support of the general public and local communities. He said that National Emergency Action Plan for polio eradication and its augmentation endorsed by the prime minister calls for ensuring that all children are immunized even in the high-risk and security compromised areas of the country.
He said that under augmented plan, the government will get support of parliamentarians, media persons and ulema to address the issues like refusal of administering polio vaccine to children and low coverage of vaccination in some areas. The official said that the plan ensures achieving full oversight, ownership and accountability for polio programme performance at each administrative level besides ensuring adequate preparations for anti-polio campaigns. He said that the government is committed to implement the emergency plan in true spirit especially at union council level of each district. He added provincial and district level administrative and political leadership is the key to make the country polio-free. He said that collective efforts of the government, development partners, local communities and media can help alleviate the sufferings of all the children.
CTP to educate transporters, drivers: Education Wing of City Traffic Police, on the special instructions of Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) Superintendent Police Syed Ishtiaq Hussain Shah, has educated the transporters and drivers to ensure safety for all road users.
According to details, Education Wing of CTP under its campaign launched to educate the citizens visited several bus and wagon stands of the city and delivered lectures and distributed pamphlets aimed at creating awareness about road safety and traffic rules.
Syed Ishtiaq Hussain said that special team of Education Wing is visiting schools, colleges, buses and wagons stand to educate the citizens about the traffic rules. He said the drive has been launched aimed at ensuring safe driving on the city roads and to make the journey more safe and secure. He said traffic rules must be observed on roads as these are for the safety of the drivers and other road users as well.
The CTO said that special campaigns were launched in the past by the traffic police to educate road users especially motorists about observance of traffic rules which are for their own safety. He asked the drivers to follow traffic rules which make the journey on roads more safe and secure. He said surveys revealed that most of the traffic accidents on roads occur due to the negligence on part of the drivers.
Ishtiaq Shah said the city traffic police have launched the drive for the safety and protection of the citizens. Efforts are being made to persuade the road users in the traffic management and an awareness campaign is also being run for observance of traffic rules, he said stressing strict observance of traffic rules asonly through this way, safe and secure journey on the roads could be ensured.
Narcotics Ministry to hold speech competition today : The Ministry of Narcotics Control is going to organise English and Urdu speech competition on Thursday among the students of Islamabad and Rawalpindi as a component of mass awareness campaign against drug abuse.
Narcotics Control Secretary Javed Iqbal will be the chief guest on the occasion, an official of the ministry told APP. He said that successful candidates would be awarded cash prizes. The first, second and third winners will be rewarded Rs 50,000, Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 respectively.
Radio to pay tribute to Zubaida Khanum: Radio Pakistan will organize a special musical concert on Friday (tomorrow) to pay tribute to legendary playback singer Zubaida Khanum.
The event, to be held at Radio Pakistan Lahore, will be broadcast live by its all FM-101, FM-93, and medium wave channels at 8:05pm. To be presided by DG PBC Murtaza Solangi, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira and film star Zeba Muhammad Ali will be the chief guests. Film stars Bahar, Naghma, Mustafa Qureshi, Asad Bukhari, Habib, director Faisal Bukhari, poet Riaz-ur-Rehman Saghar, broadcaster Riaz Mehmood, intellectual Masud Hassan, music director Wajat Atray and journalist Ashiq Chaudhry will express their views on various aspects of the life and art of the legendary singer who started her career from Radio Pakistan in 1953. Renowned singers Ghulam Abbas, Fariha Pervez, Sara Raza, ZubiaAli, Saima Mumtaz and others will perform.
