Population pace needs to be checked: President

Islamabad : President Dr. Arif Alvi Friday while expressing his concern over increasing population, called for checking its current pace of growth by creating awareness among people about its socio-economic implications.

In a meeting with Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr. Zafar Mirza, who called on him at Awan-e Sadr, the president asked the Federal Population Task Force to intensify the efforts to achieve its objectives.

President Arif Alvi is the chairman of the task force while chief ministers of four provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan, prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and seven federal ministers are its members.

The meeting reviewed the progress on the decisions taken during the previous two meetings of task force and decided to convene the third one at the earliest to materialise the body’s goals.

The meeting noted that the COVID-19 pandemic caused surge in diseases like polio and tuberculosis owing to the government’s focus currently diverted to the pandemic leaving limited resources behind to prevent and combat other diseases.