CM Syed Murad Ali Shah for waging war on polio after a horrible year in Sindh

After kicking off the year’s final campaign to inoculate children against polio on Monday, Sindh’s chief minister hoped that during the five-day drive, which was launched after a six-month break, efforts would be made to vaccinate all the 9,087,234 under-fives in the province.

CM Syed Murad Ali Shah was talking to the media after inaugurating the immunisation campaign with administering oral polio vaccine (OPV) to children at the Jannat Gul Hospital in Gadap Town. He was accompanied by Information Minister Saeed Ghani.

Shah said he chairs a meeting before the start of every polio drive. “My efforts had borne fruit, as we had only two cases of polio last year, but this year has become quite horrible for us with the emergence of 16 cases in Sindh.”

He said that new cases have emerged because of the influx from Afghanistan, Peshawar and Balochistan, but “I won’t make it into an excuse. Every child who comes to Sindh is our child, and we have to take care of them”.

The CM said that proper inquiries have been conducted to trace each and every polio case, its causes and its origin. “The inquiries have revealed that most of the cases have surfaced in Gadap and their reason is travelling,” he said. That is why the government decided to start the drive here, he added.

Shah said the prime minister had held a meeting on polio eradication a year ago and had urged him to keep holding such meetings so that the menace to the new generation could be eradicated.

“I don’t know if more meetings were held by the prime minister, but we have to wage a war on this crippling virus,” said the chief executive.

Replying to a question, he said that after the emergence of 16 new cases in the province, he has changed the strategy by involving all the elected representatives right from the union committees to the members of the provincial assembly.

“Our health minister has briefed all the assembly members and requested them to get involved personally so that we can finally defeat polio,” he said. Shah said refusal will not be tolerated this time round. He urged each and every parent to cooperate with the polio workers and ensure proper vaccination to their children. “It’s our collective responsibility to administer polio vaccine to our children.”

He said December 16 has been an unfortunate date in the history of Pakistan, as the nation witnessed the fall of Dhaka in 1971 and the murder of 132 innocent children in the Peshawar Army Public School (APS) attack in 2014.

Now the nation is facing the crippling virus of polio, whose 104 cases have been detected all across the country this year, he added. “I think December 16 is the date on which we have to reiterate our national commitment to eradicate polio and evolve a strategy to stop incidents like the APS attack from happening.”

He prayed for the children who lost their lives, and also prayed that Almighty Allah grant courage to their parents to emerge from “the pain that is alive in the heart and soul of every one of us”.

Earlier, the chief executive administered polio vaccine to children at Gadap’s Jannat Gul Hospital. Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah also administered OPV to children at the Soldier Bazaar Maternity Home, and urged parents to get their children vaccinated against the crippling disease.

Talking to the media later, the minister claimed that fake corruption cases were registered against the Pakistan Peoples Party leadership but they all got relief from the courts. He said that no action is being taken against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leaders who are involved in corruption and embezzlement of funds.