ISLAMABAD: Japan’s government on Thursday announced it would give a soft loan of $59 million to the Pakistani government for polio eradication.
The agreement in this regard was signed between Additional Secretary for Economic Affairs Division Anjum Assad Amin and Japanese Ambassador in Islamabad Takashi Kurai.
Since 1996, Japan has supported polio eradication campaign in Pakistan by way of procurement of polio vaccine, strengthening the logistics for delivery through cold chain system, improvement in the treatment of vaccinators, and dispatching Japanese medical experts. Thereby Japan’s assistance, including this yen loan, reaches 22.6 billion yen (approximately $212.5 million) in total.
“Our assistance this year of about Rs 6.2 billion was the biggest among all the assistance we have ever provided so far in this area and we sincerely hope that this yen loan would be a finishing blow to polio infection and lead to the complete polio eradication where we can see all the children free from it,” Kurai said.
Earlier, Japan International Cooperation Agency representative Yohei Ishiguro told journalists that his country had provided the soft loan to optimise immunisation programme in Pakistan.
This loan would enable Pakistan to procure approximately 273 million doses of oral polio vaccine to conduct campaigns from 2016 to 2018, Ishiguro said.
He said for achieving and maintaining interruption in polio transmission, Japan believed that robust routine immunisation was required, and had been providing technical assistance for the expanded programme on immunisation in Pakistan since 2001.
Rana Muhammad Safdar, coordinator for National Emergency Operation Centre, said that 44 polio cases were reported in Pakistan in 2015. He said the centre properly monitored polio virus across the country.
Safdar said the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were the disturbing areas as far as polio was concerned but now, due to military operation the situation improved and children were vaccinated.
He also said that community volunteers were taken in militancy disturbed areas to carry on vaccination there. He said that 90 per cent of Pakistan was polio-free, adding that efforts would continue till reaching the last child in polio eradication case.
