Army chief discusses Pakistan's fight against polio with Rotary International team

RAWALPINDI: Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Bajwa praised the efforts of Rotary International in Pakistan’s fight against polio, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations on Tuesday.

According to the army’s media cell, the army chief met with Rotary International’s four-member team.

In today’s meeting, measures related to healthcare in Pakistan and the country’s battle against poliovirus were discussed.

The army chief praised the contributions of the RI in the eradication of polio in Pakistan.

He also expressed hope that the efforts will lead to completely rooting out the disease from the country.

In January, it was reported that the overall tally of reported polio cases across the country reached 134 in 2019, including 91 cases in KP, 24 cases in Sindh, eight in Punjab and 11 in Balochistan.

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The country is one of only three in the world where polio is endemic, along with neighboring Afghanistan and Nigeria, but vaccination campaigns have cut the disease sharply, compared with 306 in 2014 and more than 350,000 in 1988, according to Pakistani health officials.