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Today's Paper | May 19, 2024

Published 07 Nov, 2012 12:07am

Anti-polio drive: apathetic officials

THE government has started anti-polio campaign in collaboration with World Health Organisation. Many government and local volunteers have been appointed for this task. But some of them are not serious or sincere about their work.

A polio team for vaccination came to our area at Brandreth Road, but they went back without administering polio drops to three children in our family. Our house is registered in their record but they did not even bother to visit it and even marked it as vaccinated.

Just like our house, there must be many others which might have been falsely marked as vaccinated. We complained to the authorities concerned but in vain. Such a situation is quite discouraging regarding the polio eradication campaign.

It is shocking that such incidents are happening in a metropolitan city like Lahore, what to talk about remote and far-flung areas like southern Punjab, Fata and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

According to a recent WHO research, three countries have been identified which are not polio-free. They are Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

The UN might impose visa restrictions on these countries to avoid spread of polio virus. It will be humiliating for these countries, especially Pakistan.

Our government must take polio campaign seriously and involve responsible people for this task. There must be a monitoring system whereby this slack attitude must be eliminated and culprits should be sentenced as they are playing with the future of children.

AYESHA ASIFLahore

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