Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said that the government is undertaking suitable measures to soon make Pakistan polio-free and reverse the trend of spread of the polio virus, adding that Pakistan has the “adequate capacity” to do so.
“We owe this to our people, our children and the world community,” the PM said in a message on the World Polio Day.
“I exhort all parents and caregivers to play their part by helping the government in reaching every child for oral polio vaccination so that our future generations grow physically healthy and free of polio.”
Terming polio a global scourge with the potential to cause widespread damage, the PM said it was a humanitarian issue requiring coordinated supranational preventive and remedial action.
He said the government was aware that the number of children paralyzed by the virus this year was the highest in a decade, adding that his government had devised a National Emergency Action Plan 2014 aimed at eradicating polio from Pakistan. The polio eradciation plan, duly approved by National Economic Council Executive Committee, would be fully funded till 2018, said Sharif.