Rotary International (RI) has blamed government agencies concerned with vaccination efforts responsible for the failure to eradicate polio from the country, despite funding of $26 million in Pakistan by the agency and the United Nations to make the worldwide anti-polio drive successful, Daily Times was told on Sunday. The RI president met President Pervez Musharraf last year and requested him to make government agencies more active with regards to the polio vaccination campaign. RI Early-Act Project for Pakistan and Afghanistan Chairman Almas Ali Jovinda said that the RI had pointed out a number of lapses on the part of government agencies for the polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan. He said that negligence by vaccinating teams and deteriorating law and order in Pakistan were the major causes poliovirus' continued presence in the country. Double check: Jovinda said that the organisation had decided to increase its members' participation in the process. "All volunteers have been instructed to personally join the polio vaccinating teams, especially in remote areas of the country, to make sure that no children remain unattended by the teams. He said that Rotary Clubs and their sister organisations across the country had also been asked to keep in touch with district health officers regarding the campaign. He said that the organisation had expressed its deep grievances over the detection of recent polio cases in Sindh, Punjab and Swat. However, he said that they were aware of the security issues in some areas of the NWFP and Balochistan, and could understand why such cases had emerged from these areas. He said that RI volunteers would join the vaccination teams in various areas of Pakistan during the upcoming National Immunisation Day. Concerning the reports of poliovirus detected in two girls in Swat, Jovinda said that they might have received the virus during a trip to Karachi they had taken recently. However, he said that such cases should have been prevented in other provinces, adding that 29 polio cases had been detected so far in Pakistan, while 31 cases were detected last year. He said that the Rotary aimed to establish 10 new clubs of under-13 children in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the next year. He said that it was difficult for the organisation to vaccinate Afghan children due to the ongoing war. He said that Rotary Clubs in Kabul and some other areas were trying their best to vaccinate as many children as they could. All-out efforts: However, Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) National Programme Manager Dr HB Memon told Daily Times that government agencies had left no stone unturned to vaccinate each and every child in the country. He said that it was difficult to campaign in deserts, mountains and risky areas. "A few children might have been missed from being vaccinated,' he said. He said that the number of polio victims was more than 30,000 in 1994 when the government started that campaign. He said that chief secretaries of all the provinces had been monitoring polio eradication campaigns through the district co-ordination officers. "The government of Pakistan will mark National Immunisation Day by giving polio vaccines to all children under the age of five from August 19 to August 21,' he added.