Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (PM) and the focal person for the Polio Eradication Program, Shehnaz Wazir Ali on Monday said that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf were personally pursuing and extending full support to the anti-polio campaigns in the country.
She said during a meeting with an Indian delegation, that like the Indian State of Bihar, polio would be totally eliminated from Pakistan soon. The Bihar Chief Minister (CM), Nitish Kumar had been leading the delegation which had been visiting various cities and towns of Pakistan. Jalal Sheikh, Aziz Memon, Muhammad Fayyaz Kidwani, Syed Shoab Balkhi and the PM’s Special Assistant had been accompanying the delegation. Shehnaz briefed the Indian delegation about the government initiatives taken for the eradication of polio virus from the country.
She said that the anti-polio program was being successfully carried out in every nook and corner of the country with the support of President Zardari, Prime Minister Ashraf and the chiefs of political parties. Pakistan would soon be a polio free country, she added.
She said that many teams were busy in administering anti-polio drops in the remotest areas of the country. This year, the anti-polio campaign was being carried out in a more organized manner as compared to last year and further improvement was expected in the future, she remarked.
The Bihar CM said that in Bihar an aggressive anti-polio campaign was launched in 2005 by utilizing all available resources. Special teams were sent to the remote areas of the state, while special camps were being set up at Railways stations, bus stands and recreational sites on the eve of special days which helped a lot in eradicating polio from the state, he added.
With the help of lady health workers in Bihar, special arrangement was made to take care of new born babies and their mothers in remote and backward areas of the state. These female workers had administered the first doze of anti-polio drops to new born babies, he added. Nitish said that his government was making the best use of the available means to eradicate polio virus and over the last two years not a single case of polio was reported in the state.
