PM Kakar vows to protect every child in country from poliovirus

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister (PM) Anwaarul Haq Kakar on Friday expressed the government’s resolve to protect every child in the country from poliovirus.

The prime minister expressed these remarks during a meeting with a delegation of Rotary International led by Stephanie A. Urchik, who called on him at the Prime Minister Office (PMO).

During the meeting, PM Kakar lauded Rotary International, world community and development partners for their role in the eradication of polio in Pakistan. He also appreciated the organisation’s services for promoting education and other sectors.

The delegation briefed the prime minister about the Pakistan Smart Village Programme and performance of the Rotary International for polio eradication.

The prime minister congratulated Stephanie for becoming the first female president of Rotary International and expressed good wishes. He also reiterated his government’s resolve to make every Pakistani children safe from polio.

He assured Rotary International of his government’s all-out cooperation in the execution of its programmes, and expressed the hope that the organization would expand the accessibility to their programmes.

PM Kakar was told that Rotary would help uplift the living standards of the people while taking advantage of innovation and technology.

It was said that the Smart Villages would help promote the agriculture sector, take advantage of alternative energy, improve irrigation, provide drinking water, and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

The meeting was told that Rotary International had donated around 800,000 books across Pakistan, with 200,000 distributed in Balochistan.

The delegation also gifted another 10,000 books to the prime minister which would be distributed in different parts of the country.

It was told that the Rotary International mobile library was helping promote book reading and literacy.

Last year, Islamabad reported six polio cases as Pakistan and Afghanistan remained the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic.