ISLAMABAD, Dec 15: President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday reiterated that eradication of polio was the PPP-led government’s top priority.

The spokesman to the president, Senator Farhatullah Babar, said Mr Zardari was discussing the situation with regard to the reported polio cases in the country and the steps being taken for eradication of the disease with representatives of some international agencies and non-governmental organisations at the Aiwan-i-Sadr.

The delegation comprised Ms Katharina Hulshof, a regional director of the Unicef, Kalayan Banerjee, president of the Rotary International, Dr Waqar Ajmal of the Bill Gates & Melinda Foundation, Aziz Memon, the chairman of the Rotary International’s Polio Plus Committee, Dr Guido Sabatinelli, the WHO representative for Pakistan, and Dan Roharmann, the country head of the Unicef.

Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, the chairperson of the President’s Polio Oversight Committee, Begum Shahnaz Wazirali, the PM’s focal person on polio eradication, Nasreen Haque, secretary to the president, and Dr Altaf Bosan, the national coordinator for the PM’s Monitoring and Coordination Cell for Polio Eradication, were present on the occasion.

The meeting was informed that the National Emergency Action Plan (NEAP) focussed mainly on oversight and accountability mechanisms at the federal, provincial, district and grassroots levels besides strategies aimed to ensure access to the sensitive areas.

Discussing the situation obtaining in the tribal areas and some parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, President Zardari said the government was making efforts, with the support of political and religious leaders and other notables, to reach out even to those areas where inaccessibility and security issues had hampered polio eradication campaigns in the past.

During    the meeting, the president also telephoned Maulana Fazlur Rehman and requested him to meet the delegation to discuss issues relating to resistance offered by some people on religious grounds to the anti-polio campaigns. The Maulana expressed his willingness to meet the delegation.

The meeting was also informed that a strategy had been introduced to cover children moving out of and into the Federally Administered Areas. For this purpose special polio teams had been constituted.

It was told that 56 transit points had been established to cover these children. —APP