Dawn: ISLAMABAD, March 18: Our ambassador to the United States has advised the government to seek US help to ward off possible “travelling restrictions” being imposed on Pakistan for failing to eradicate polio virus.
“There are already moves afoot in the World Health Organisation (WHO) to make vaccinations mandatory for people travelling to and from the polio endemic countries including Pakistan,” said ambassador Sherry Rehman in a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office, which Dawn has seen.
In fact she claims to have averted such a move at the recent WHO Executive Board meeting in Geneva, by firing “a strong demarche here in Washington, to avoid the initiation of any WHO lead processes prejudicial to our interests”.
Polio virus transmission from Pakistan to the world was on the agenda of the WHO board meeting held in January.
Ambassador Rehman’s worries arose because the attacks on and killing of polio vaccinators in Pakistan, the discovery of polio virus in Egypt traceable to Pakistan, and the deaths from measles in the country “have aggravated the concerns of the World Health Organisation and the international community”.
Categories: Asia