Government, Civil Society Urged To Join Hands To Eradicate Polio From Pakistan

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Feb, 2020 ) :Chairman Mehboob Medical Institute Dr. Mehboob-ur-Rehman urged upon the government and civil society to join hands to eradicate polio from Pakistan as the polio virus has been spread once again and more than hundred children have been victims in the last year in 2019.

Talking to APP, Dr. Mehboob Ur Rehman said that his initiative for the polio affected children was started on February 3, 1989 by establishing Physio-care Free Polio Clinic in Habib Physiotherapy Complex and since then hundreds of polio affected children were treated and rehabilitated at this clinic.

"We also arranged free polio camps in different districts all across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which made awareness and also helped in rehabilitation of children. A year or two back it was assumed that Pakistan will be declared free polio country but unfortunately in 2019 once again the situation is worsen and now it is a responsibility of civil society and government that they should come and join hands for the eradication of polio from Pakistan.

The assistance of our organization is still continued and in 1997 with the establishment of Habib Physiotherapy Complex recently our success story for polio survivor Shahpari, an afghan refugee girl have been published by UNHCR, "Shahpari journey of resilience and courage".

"We rehabilitation her and help in education in our institute Mehboob Medical Institute and she got BSc Physiotherapy degree and now she is looking after her life in a dignified way besides caring other," Dr. Mehboob Ur Rehman added.

"We have more focused on the rehabilitation as we also added the provision of assistive devices, artificial appliances and now with the addition of Mehboob Medical Institute we also focused on the research for prevention of disability where I have been able to design and invent a research based tool, Mehboob power evaluation and therapeutic chart, which is around the world got recognition," he informed.

"Mehboob Power Evaluation and Therapeutic Chart, is a research based tool which is helpful in rehabilitation of polio affected children," he said, adding, "It is not only used in country but also at international level, it has been implemented." It was presented in international conference at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and it have been uploaded by Polio Health International on its website while placing me polio health expert from Pakistan in Post polio directory, which is also available on dozen of websites on Google, so internationally recognized, he further added.

Habib Physiotherapy Complex, he said, still offers treatment, rehabilitation and assistive devices for these children and as with coordination with government to provide assistances to the new identified cases of 2019 and 2020.

"We highly appreciate the government and international organization as WHO for prevention measures but there is need to evolve a mechanism for the proper rehabilitation, education and skill development for these children to avoid them to be beggars in future and being crippled for their whole life. We are here to assist the government and international organization for any of such initiative, Dr. Mehboob concluded.