PESHAWAR: Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Shaukatullah has revealed that Pakistanis may face a complete travel ban for Hajj and Umrah due to failure of the country to contain the spread of the poliovirus.
In an exclusive chat with The News, he revealed that during the last 18 months, Pakistan had infected many other countries with the poliovirus. He feared that the Saudi government might impose complete travel ban on Hajj and Umrah of our people.
"Poliovirus has gone from here (Pakistan) to Syria, Egypt and Gaza and our people will not be allowed to proceed for Hajj and Umrah if the public didn't change their attitude towards polio vaccination within two or three years," he said.[/b]
Raising question marks over the poor communication and awareness building strategies of the highly paid officials of the polio programme, the governor said there was a lack of awareness and no realisation in the masses about the significance of polio vaccine. "Our people don't realise what they are doing to their children by denying them their right to polio vaccines," remarked the governor.
Responding to a question regarding the channel through which this shocking news of complete travel ban by Saudi Arabia was communicated to the governor, he said that it has officially been communicated to them. "I am not saying this on my own. What I said has been communicated to us that our people will not be allowed to go for Hajj and Umrah if poliovirus is not eliminated here," he stated.
Governor Shaukatullah felt that it was unfortunate that the next generations would be born handicapped, but even then nobody had the realisation regarding the gravity of the situation.
