[DAWN] The rapid and uncontrolled spread of polio...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
through Pakistain has the whole world on edge. Nearly all international observers have admitted that the polio crisis in Pakistain has reached disastrous proportions and immediate steps are necessary to stem the spread of the "Pakistain poliovirus" which has already caused deaths and paralysis in Pakistain, Afghanistan, the Middle East and parts of Africa.
But the provinces -- who are responsible for the all-important portfolio of health -- seem unwilling to let go of the polio lucrative programme that their governments have all but driven into the ground.
A meeting of the inter-provincial steering committee, chaired by National Health Services (NHS) Minister Saira Afzal Tarar, was convened on Wednesday to discuss whether the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) should be given the job of combating polio in the country.
The case for the NDMA had been made by the recently published report of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative's Independent Monitoring Board (IMB), which describes the NDMA as "bringing can-do to can't do". The report is highly critical of the Pakistain government's unwillingness to innovate in the search for solutions to the spiraling polio crisis. It holds up the example of Nigeria, which introduced health camps and empowered an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) which it is still using to contain the threat of Ebola inside its borders.