PM orders emergency polio vaccination campaign

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday directed the authorities to run the polio eradication campaign on an emergency basis, using all possible means to eliminate the crippling disease from the country once and for all.

He was chairing a meeting here about polio eradication in sensitive districts of the country. Health Minister Abdul Qadir Patel, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, provincial chief secretaries, deputy commissioners of affected districts and other officials attended the meeting.

The PM ordered for paying special attention to southern districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, including North Waziristan, South Waziristan, and Bannu. He also ordered for vaccinating children who could not be vaccinated earlier for any reason. The PM advised for providing the best medical facilities to people so that spread of polio could be stopped strictly.

Meanwhile, PM Shehbaz Sharif expressed solidarity with people of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K), who rejected visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the occupied territory. "We stand with people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir as they rejected the visit and observed black day," the PM said on his twitter.

Shehbaz said the Indian PM staged a visit to Occupied Kashmir and lay foundation stone of hydroelectric projects in contravention of the Indus Waters Treaty, which was another desperate attempt to project false normality in occupied territory.