UAE efforts saved millions of lives: Pakistan Ambassador
As the world marks World Polio Day today, the Ambassador of Pakistan to the UAE, Moazzam Ahmad Khan, has commended the UAE’s global efforts and financial contributions towards eradicating the polio virus and saving millions of children in Pakistan and other nations.
“We are very appreciative and grateful to the leadership of the UAE for helping the government of Pakistan in eradicating this disease and most importantly helping the people of Pakistan,” said Khan.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) also acknowledged the immense contributions the UAE has made to eradicate this debilitating disease.
As the WHO Pakistan reported, tens of millions of children in Pakistan have been vaccinated against polio since the launch of the Emirates Polio Campaign in 2014 under the UAE Pakistan Assistance Programme, UAE-PAP. Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world where polio continues to circulate, alongside Afghanistan and Nigeria. The country has registered an overall 97 per cent drop in wild poliovirus cases since 2014, cases consistently dropped from 306 to 54 in 2015, 20 in 2016 and only eight in 2017. So far this year, six cases have been reported from Pakistan. ‘Unfortunately, Pakistan is still one of those countries which are suffering from this disease, although, the number has significantly reduced thanks to the campaign supported and financed by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces,’ said Khan.
In 2017, more than 12.8 million children of Pakistan’s high-risk areas benefited from the UAE’s assistance through the administration of around 96 million polio drops. Between January and September 2018, more than 92 million polio drops were given to 13.5 million children in Pakistan. The ambassador went on to say that the number of polio cases has reduced significantly, ‘but, we still have some cases being reported, and we also need to keep in mind this disease is reoccurring, and cases are traceable particularly in the remote northern areas of Pakistan’.