PESHAWAR, Jan 23: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked the NWFP government to set up rehabilitation centres for polio-affected children to save them from paralysis.

The NWFP Social Welfare and Women Development Department had pledged during a visit of the WHO country chief two years back that rehabilitation centres would be set up to provide services to children affected by the disease.

“Despite the passage of two years, there is no progress and affected children countinue to suffer,” said an Islamabad-based WHO official.

He said two years ago, the provincial minister for social welfare and women development, during a meeting with representatives of the global health agency had agreed to establish rehabilitation centres across the province.

The WHO had offered technical and logistic support to make these centres operational at the earliest, but there has been no progress.

He said the minister had hinted at contacting children and providing them rehabilitation services accordingly.

The WHO official said that there were more than 8,000 children in the NWFP and Fata, who desperately needed rehabilitation services to be able to walk independently.

He said polio patients needed different exercises along with wheel chairs so they could start walking.

“Most of the polio patients remain dependent on others because of lack of rehabilitation services,” he said and added that the number of polio patients had declined to 15 in 2006 from 1,000 reported in the late 80s when the anti-polio campaign was launched.

Most of the affected children belonged to poor families due to which they were unable to get rehabilitation services from private facilities.

The WHO official said that a paraplegic centre established during Russian’s occupation of Afghanistan was used to cater to the needs of war victims.

The centre that was operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross is now lying useless and the WHO could offer its services to reactivate it, he added.