Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Wednesday said that polio issue in tribal areas, especially in North Waziristan, must be included in the dialogue process with Taliban.
Talking to reporters in Islamabad along with World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Magaret Chan, Imran said the PTI-led Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) government was focusing more on Peshawar than the rest of the province because the city has a higher incidence of polio.
“Most of the cases from the province are from Peshawar; the virus was found in the city’s sewerage system,” he said, adding that the provincial government – after making Peshawar polio-free, will move to other areas as well.
The WHO had declared Peshawar the largest reservoir of endemic polio-virus in the world, with more than 90% of the current polio cases in the country genetically linked to the city.
Responding to a question pertaining to transparency of the vaccination campaign, Imran pointed out that the provincial government was only providing resources such as health workers, security and transport, whereas the money was being handled by other donors.
