By Sehrish Wasif
ISLAMABAD: Three-year old Aamira Aamir, a resident of Tandu Allahyar District, was diagnosed with polio on Wednesday by the National Institute of Health (NIH). This is the first case of polio reported in 2011 from Sindh, and takes the total number of polio cases reported in 2011 to four, including two from Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) and one from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).
The report coincided with a legislative forum on Wednesday that urged the tabling of the Compulsory Immunization Bill before the parliament and provincial assemblies as soon as possible to improve the limited coverage and poor results of recent immunisation drives in the country.
The forum titled, ‘The critical need to improve immunization in Pakistan and the draft Compulsory Immunization Bill,’ was organised by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) at a local hotel.
The objective behind the discussion was to provoke much-needed debate on the need to make immunization campaigns more effective.
Speakers expressed their concern over the increasing number of polio cases in 2010, adding that the immunization programme was launched in 1978, but despite spending huge funds and resources for over 30 years, it has failed to achieve the required goals.
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