PESHAWAR, Jan 22: NWFP Minister for Information and Education Syed Imtiaz Hussain Gilani has said that if we pay a little attention to polio, our future generations could be permanently protected from this fatal and disabling disease.

Inaugurating the three-day door-to-door anti-polio drive in the selected districts and agencies at Lady Reading Hospital here on Monday , Mr. Gilani said Pakistan also could eliminate this disease like China which with a population of 1.2 billion had completely eradicated the polio virus.

He appreciated the arrangements made for the campaign and said there were no more ‘no-go-areas’ in the country. Female members of the immunization teams could easily go house-to-house and administer polio drops to the children, he added.

Mr Gilani regretted that Pakistan was still, after such a long efforts, not only one of the 13 countries hit by polio, and the 3rd among them. Pakistan’s share in the polio cases was 25 per cent in the world while the NWFP had the same percentage of cases in Pakistan.

But, he hoped that the polio virus would be totally eradicated. Pakistan would soon— within the three years — get a polio free certificate from the WHO.

Pakistan’s deadline for total eradication of polio was the year 2000, but still 28 cases of polio have been reported from the nine districts and five agencies as against 419 in 1993.

Seven districts and three agencies are severely hit by the polio, therefore, the special immunization campaign/round has been organized for these areas. The usual anti-polio campaign as schedule for March would also be held throughout the province.

Mr Gilani said that he had directed the education department to fully cooperate in anti-polio campaign and mobilizing people. These districts and agencies had also been divided into two zones of which the Peshawar zone consists of: Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi and Khyber Agency. And the Bannu zone comprised Lakki Marwat, North Waziristan and South Waziristan Agencies, he added.

The function at the Lady Reading Hospital was also addressed by the director-general health, Habibur Rehman, director EPI, Dr Abdul Hameed Afridi and representative of the WHO, Eric Laurend.

The minister regretted that if we had paid attention to science, we would have taken precautionary measures against diseases like polio.

He stressed upon the people to get administered the polio drops to each and every child so that they could be permanently protected from this disease.

NWFP government in collaboration with the federal government organizes two rounds of NIDs each year.—PPI