Health: Emergency plan to combat polio

Virus poses international threat because Pakistan is one of last remaining reservoirs of endemic polio transmission.

KARACHI: An emergency plan meant to interrupt transmission of the polio virus by the end of the current year has been initiated by the government in collaboration with the WHO, Unicef and Rotary International.

Speaking to APP, the director of the WHO Polio Eradication Initiative for Sindh Dr Jamil Youssef stated that the continued transmission of the virus is a national emergency.

The virus also poses an international threat because Pakistan is one of the last remaining reservoirs of endemic polio transmission in the world.

The micro level plan will specifically target the inhabitants of Karachi because of the large number of migrants and internally displaced persons it houses.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2011.