UAE PAP is a strong project in the fight against polio: WHO

by Muhammad Aamir ABU DHABI, 29th March, 2018 (WAM) -- Christopher Maher, Manager of the Polio Eradication World Health Organisation, WHO, Eastern Mediterranean Region, has said that the UAE Pakistan Assistance Programme, UAE PAP, is a strong project in the fight against polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan, thanks to the generous financial help from His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. "The UAE has been a very strong supporter of polio eradication for several years. His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed has authorised the contribution of almost US$200 million for this purpose and this money is very useful in Pakistan," he told Emirates News Agency, WAM, in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the Afghanistan-Pakistan co-ordination meeting on the common WPV reservoirs in Abu Dhabi. "There is a very strong co-operation project, the UAE Pakistan Assistance Programme, UAE PAP, through which the funds are dispersed and they are targeted specifically towards those parts of Pakistan, which are most difficult to reach. It is particularly useful money in ensuring that children in most difficult situations can get this vaccine," Maher said. The UAE is hosting a two-day meeting in the capital, which is organised by the WHO Regional Office. It is being attended by experts from Pakistan, Afghanistan and representatives of the UNICEF in both countries. Today’s meeting, Maher said, is part of a series of meetings that have been held between the polio eradication programmes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. "This meeting is to help co-ordinate programmes to ensure that every child will be reached for the vaccine in both countries." Answering a query, he said, "Afghanistan has a very strong polio eradication programme and has that programme for several years, and I think that there is no secret of the difficulties that the programme faces. Of course, there are a lot of security concerns and a lot of difficulties in reaching every child in the population, which makes things quite difficult, but for us, we feel the situation in Afghanistan is quite encouraging as for as polio eradication is concerned, where there is good evidence that most children are being reached for vaccine and they have been reached quite consistently. There are still some gaps to close up no questions about that we still need to close some gaps, but we believe that we are going in the right direction." About the role of social media, Maher said, "There is a very strong effort to engage communities in both countries through a very developed communication programme that is working hard. And the UNICEF in conjunction with the two national governments has quite a lot of specialisation in this area; they are working very hard to engage communities and communicate effectively together with the two national programmes." However, he said that social media misinformation can be very, very harmful and "we have to constantly work to counter it. But negative social media is not a phenomenon, which is restricted to Pakistan and Afghanistan, it also happens in Germany and the United States and many other places as well." Talking about the expectations from the meeting, he said, "I think at the end of the next few days, we will come up with a better-coordinated plan of action between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Already there is a lot of work to co-ordinate the work of the programme and make sure that every single population group, particularly those groups that are moving across the border back and forth. So we are all very hopeful that at the end of these next days, we will have a very stronger plan to make sure that all these children can be reached for the vaccine."