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'Spoke with Bill Gates last night': Imran Khan on Pakistan’s polio eradication programme
Wild poliovirus currently impacts only two countries in the world-Afghanistan and Pakistan
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday tweeted about his interaction with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates about the Gates Foundation’s support of Pakistan’s polio eradication programme. “Spoke with Bill Gates last night and thanked him for the help his Foundation provided for polio eradication in Pak,” Khan tweeted on Thursday.
Khan mentioned that polio cases in Pakistan have come down drastically in one year after just one case was recorded as against the 56 cases recorded a year before. He also expressed his hopes of eradicating polio in the coming year.
“This time last year we had 56 reported cases - this year so far only 1 case. InshaAllah we will eradicate polio completely in the coming year,” Khan said.
The Gates Foundation in collaboration with the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) supplies technical and financial resources for community-driven immunisation programs. The foundation also runs emergency operations centres in Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Wild poliovirus currently impacts only two countries in the world-Afghanistan and Pakistan. In early June, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government launched a nationwide drive to eradicate polio by the end of this year. However, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has hampered the drive’s reach to a considerable extent, according to UNICEF’s estimates.
The eradication programme is also marred by frequent attacks on local healthcare workers. A few days after the launch of the national program gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed two police officers assigned to protect polio vaccination workers in northwest Pakistan, reported the Associated Press.
Khan also said that he asked Bill Gates’s if a Microsoft incubation lab could be set up in Pakistan.
