Pakistan News & Features Services
Aziz Memon, one of the leading entrepreneurs of the country, remains optimistic about making Pakistan polio-free despite numerous operational challenges being faced in the efforts aimed as its elimination.
“We are one hundred per cent optimistic and we will make Pakistan polio-free. This is our commitment,” the national chair of Rotary International Polio Plus’s programme in Pakistan observed in an interview with a Gulf daily on March 6.
“We have been frequently travelling to the far flung areas of the country to organize Jirgas (meetings with tribal elders) and religious scholars, all in an effort to increase awareness about the disease,” Aziz Memon, one of the leading Rotary leaders, remarked.
Rotary International has been playing a vital role in the eradication of polio throughout the world, especially in Pakistan’s tribal areas, including Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), Kashmir, Sindh and Balochistan, having allocated $100 million to Pakistan for this particular cause while its global programmes are funded to the tune of more than $1.2 billion.
‘We have mobilised all the sectors including the Rotarians and people from all walks of life. We have created six resource centres across the country. We have 14 permanent immunisation centres and one recent milestone for Rotary International was the construction of 12 Permanent Transitory Points (PTPs) at various borders of the country,” Aziz Memon observed.
“Permanent Transitory Points are the basic requirement for polio eradication because, when Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and refugees migrate, they are a major source of spreading the Polio virus, so now they are vaccinated at these points. Besides this, we have provided the vaccine carriers with Speaking Books to raise awareness among children. We are doing quite a number of other things as well, like the cellphone project and we are encouraging our every club to have a permanent immunisation centre,” he added.
“I have been a Rotarian for more than two decades and being the National Chair on Polio, I have been carrying out my responsibilities for the last four and half years. So I have high hopes that we should be able to overcome the hurdles make Pakistan polio-free,” he asserted.
“I have just one belief that if you are working for a good cause God is with you and I have my full faith in God. I know that I am doing something thta is good and my God is with me. He helps, protects and guards me so that we can fulfil the promise we have made with the children of this world and our country particularly. And I am sure that there will be a day in our lives when no child will be crippled because of this disease,” Aziz Memon hoped.
“According to the latest figures, we have 19 polio cases reported so far in 2014 and in 2013 there were 93 cases reported throughout in the country. In 2012 we were close to realising our goal to make Pakistan Polio-free but then there were attacks on polio workers and the fresh cases reported from the areas that were inaccessible to immunisation workers but we are now hopeful and committed to end this disease because this is a war for the survival of our future generations. Our future generations are at stake. We have to do this, to end polio now,” he stressed.
“We have been frequently travelling to the far flung areas of the country to organize Jirgas (meetings with tribal elders) and religious scholars, all in an effort to increase awareness about the disease,” Aziz Memon, one of the leading Rotary leaders, remarked.
Rotary International has been playing a vital role in the eradication of polio throughout the world, especially in Pakistan’s tribal areas, including Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), Kashmir, Sindh and Balochistan, having allocated $100 million to Pakistan for this particular cause while its global programmes are funded to the tune of more than $1.2 billion.
‘We have mobilised all the sectors including the Rotarians and people from all walks of life. We have created six resource centres across the country. We have 14 permanent immunisation centres and one recent milestone for Rotary International was the construction of 12 Permanent Transitory Points (PTPs) at various borders of the country,” Aziz Memon observed.
“Permanent Transitory Points are the basic requirement for polio eradication because, when Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and refugees migrate, they are a major source of spreading the Polio virus, so now they are vaccinated at these points. Besides this, we have provided the vaccine carriers with Speaking Books to raise awareness among children. We are doing quite a number of other things as well, like the cellphone project and we are encouraging our every club to have a permanent immunisation centre,” he added.
“I have been a Rotarian for more than two decades and being the National Chair on Polio, I have been carrying out my responsibilities for the last four and half years. So I have high hopes that we should be able to overcome the hurdles make Pakistan polio-free,” he asserted.
“I have just one belief that if you are working for a good cause God is with you and I have my full faith in God. I know that I am doing something thta is good and my God is with me. He helps, protects and guards me so that we can fulfil the promise we have made with the children of this world and our country particularly. And I am sure that there will be a day in our lives when no child will be crippled because of this disease,” Aziz Memon hoped.
“According to the latest figures, we have 19 polio cases reported so far in 2014 and in 2013 there were 93 cases reported throughout in the country. In 2012 we were close to realising our goal to make Pakistan Polio-free but then there were attacks on polio workers and the fresh cases reported from the areas that were inaccessible to immunisation workers but we are now hopeful and committed to end this disease because this is a war for the survival of our future generations. Our future generations are at stake. We have to do this, to end polio now,” he stressed.
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