ISLAMABAD: The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) on Friday approved revised emergency plan for eradication of polio at a cost of $986.29 million.
The ECNEC, which met in Islamabad with Finance Minister Asad Umar in the chair, also approved feasibility study and dualisation of 42-kilometer long Mardan-Swabi Road at a cost of Rs9,550.10 million.
The polio eradication plan aims to end the epidemic through supplemental immunization across the country and use environmental surveillance to completely check poliovirus transmission. A fresh polio case was detected on January 10 in the Lakki Marwat area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
Planning Minister Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, on January 4, had pledged that polio would be eradicated from Pakistan by 2019.
Unless sewerage and sanitation system of the whole country, a root cause of polio epidemic, is not taken care of in right earnest, mere polio drops would not solve this gigantic problem.