LAKKI MARWAT: The district boy scouts association and civil society activists launched a tree plantation drive under the Clean and Green Pakistan campaign on Saturday.

District scout secretary Nisar Mohammad Khan kicked off the campaign by planting a sapling on the premises of a government high school in Nawerkhel village.

He also distributed saplings among students and scouts. He highlighted the importance of plantation and increasing forest cover to ensure achievement of sustainable development goals.

“We can also overcome environmental problems by growing more and more trees,” he maintained, saying that the education department had initiated the campaign with a view to minimising pollution and effects of climate change.

CONTAINING POLIOVIRUS: The Lakki Marwat administration and elders will launch integrated efforts to eliminate the crippling disease from the district.

Speaking at a meeting here on Saturday, deputy commissioner Abdul Haseeb said emergence of polio cases proved that poliovirus was in circulation in the district and posed serious threat to children’s lives.

Noted among other participants were head of Marwat Qaumi Jirga Aslam Khan, Mansoor Kamal Khan, former district nazim Iqbal Hussain, civil society representative Hamid Khan Meenakhel, Maulana Samiullah Mujahid and Waheed Aslam Khan.

A three-day anti-polio drive will commence from Monday in Lakki Marwat, which is in the limelight with highest number of confirmed polio cases in the current and previous year.

Last year, 32 cases were reported, while nine children contracted the crippling disease in the first two months of this year.

The meeting was convened by the deputy commissioner to sensitise the elders to the alarming situation and seek their help in vaccination of targeted children.

Mr Haseeb said children who could not receive the oral polio vaccine due to refusal by their parents faced grave health risk.

“The elders have influence in their respective localities, so they should come forward to save the children from the lifelong paralysis,” he maintained.

He also urged the elders to convince people not to link vaccination of their children with solution to problems.

The elders assured of launching door-to-door campaign to persuade reluctant parents on immunisation of children.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2020