ISLAMABAD: The Senate was informed on Friday that provincial governments had been sending fake reports about anti-polio campaigns.

Saira Afzal Tarar, the Minister of State for National Health Services, told the house that the provinces shared fabricated figures of incomplete polio campaigns with the federal government, ultimately leading to travel restriction on Pakistanis.

She was replying to an adjournment motion on international travel restrictions imposed on the country by the World Health Organisation (WHO) last week.

The motion was moved by Senator Rubina Khalid.

Saira Tarar said the figures coming from districts and reaching the federal government through the provincial governments put the success rate of the immunisation campaigns as high as 80 to 90 per cent.

She said Balochistan had remained the least accessible province in terms of immunisation, with just 16 per cent of the population benefiting from it, followed by Sindh with 29 per cent. Punjab has the highest level of immunisation with 68.5 per cent and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the rate was 52.5 per cent.

She said that only 0.5pc of refusals to get vaccinated were based on religious grounds.

Ms Tarar described Karachi, Peshawar and Fata, particularly North Waziristan, as dangerous in terms of strain of the poliovirus and justified measures taken by the Punjab government for internal travel restrictions on the people coming from other provinces.

She also informed the Senate that around 1 million vaccination cards had been printed by the federal government, which would be sent to provinces. Local documents required by provincial governments would be valid till June 1, she said.

Leader of Opposition in Senate Aitzaz Ahsan flabbergasted many by holding out an assurance of full support to the government in the fight against polio.

Earlier, the opposition staged a walkout from the house in protest against the government’s privatisation policy.

The walkout followed the disclosure that the defence ministry had not been taken into confidence prior to the decision to privatise the national flag-carrier.

PPP leader Mian Raza Rabbani said that the move by the government was not only a violation of rules of business but the constitution as well. He said the matter should have been taken to the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2014