KARACHI: After the detection of a new polio case in Quetta, Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari, an ambassador for polio in Sindh who champions Pakistan’s fight against polio, on Friday asked provincial health department officials and representatives of various local and international organisations to increase their efforts for polio eradication in Sindh.

“(I) held a high level briefing on #polio today with repres of @UNICEF @WHO @gatesfoundation & health sect Sindh with strong focus on missed children,” tweeted Ms Bhutto-Zardari after chairing a meeting held at Bilawal House to review progress on Sindh government plans to curb the crippling disease.

The first child to be administered with polio drops after her mother, slain prime minister Benazir Bhutto had introduced countrywide polio campaigns in 1994, she in another tweet stated: “I call on all political leaders to re double their efforts for upcoming low season #polio campaigns.”

A spokesperson of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party quoted her as saying that workers and female volunteers played a key role in polio campaigns. She appreciated their role in their local communities for polio eradication.

She asked the Sindh government to reach out to each and every child and administer them with polio drops.

The meeting was earlier briefed that a total of 30 cases of polio were reported from across Sindh last year, which included 23 in Karachi alone, while the remaining cases were reported from other districts of the province. Since October 2014, however, no case of the polio virus had been reported from Karachi, while four cases were reported from other parts of Sindh, the meeting was informed.

The officials said there were 1,607,260 children under the age of five years were to be focused in polio campaigns in various parts of the province.

Officials in the meeting quoted Ms Bhutto-Zardari as saying that it was a dream of her mother to root out polio from Pakistan and it was she who started the anti-polio drive as a national campaign.

The Sindh health secretary, provincial coordinator for polio Shehnaz Wazir Ali and representatives of Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation, World Health Organization and Unicef attended the meeting.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2015

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