PTI, PML-N join hands in KP, Fata to launch ‘Sehat Ka Ittehad’ polio campaign

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which have been at loggerheads for long have joined hands to fight the crippling polio and other childhood diseases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the adjoining Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) under the name of “Sehat Ka Ittehad.”
It gives a sudden recall of the famous polio drive “Sehat Ka Insaf” conducted in Peshawar and other parts of KP last year.The rare unanimity was demonstrated at the meeting of the Provincial Apex Committee held here on Thursday and attended, among others, by Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak, Governor Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan, Corps Commander Peshawar Lt Gen Hidayat-ur-Rahman and Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai. The last-named attended the meeting on special invitation.
The meeting decided that the two parties would not resort to politics anymore on health issues. Rather they would jointly struggle to improve health conditions of the people in KP and Fata.They also decided to constitute a front “Sehat Ka Ittehad” to wage war against the nine childhood diseases including polio.
Those privy to the meeting told The News that Health Minster Shahram Khan presented the ‘Sehat Ka Ittehad’ plan to the Apex Committee. He told the meeting that four tribal regions in Fata and 10 districts of the province had reported more than 83 percent polio cases in the world. He added that defeating the poliovirus in this region was the key for ridding the world of the disease.
Senior leaders in PTI told The News that after the gruesome attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, PTI Chairman Imran Khan had asked Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to play his role in bringing the governor and the prime minister to ‘one table’ to formulate the “Sehat Ka Ittehad” polio drive against nine diseases.
“Imran Khan has again proven that he is willing to put politics aside and join hands even with the PML-N for the sake of the future generations of the country,” the PTI leader observed.Later in the day, Health Minister Shahram Khan, while addressing a press conference at the Health Department, said the campaign would start from the first week of February and conclude in the first week of May.
The campaign would cover a number of districts, including five in southern parts of the province sited on the boundary with North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Khyber Agency and Frontier Region Bannu.
It would also enable the health workers to reach out to children in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, where local Taliban had banned polio vacation campaign for quite a long time as a mark of protest over US drone attacks. The Taliban used to claim that innocent people, including women and children, were being killed in the drone strikes. However, they had failed to provide proof to back up their claims.
The ban, however, deprived thousands of innocent children of polio drops and left dozens of children ?physically handicapped forever.It would, however, be a difficult task for the government to reach all the children displaced from South Waziristan, North Waziristan and Khyber tribal regions ?due to the military operation in these areas.
Also, though Governor Mehtab Ahmad Khan and Corps Commander Lt Gen Hidayat-ur-Rahman pledged to make the drive a success, it would be difficult for health workers to trace children in the remote areas of Fata due to security constraints and weather conditions.“In the first phase, 300 health units would vaccinate 3,300,000 children,” Shahram Khan said.
Responding to a question regarding funding for the “Sehat ka Ittehad” campaign, the health minister said that they would request the UN organisations including the Unicef and WHO to provide them hygiene kits and material for comprehensive communication strategy for the drive.
Also, they did not disclose the cost of the campaign. Besides other challenges, the government would need to show sincerity in its efforts against polio eradication and hold accountable those spending millions of dollars of foreign donors for their failures.