For the Hajj 2024 ceremonies, three planes with a combined total of up to 530 Pakistani passengers touched down in Madina Munawara.

Three planes left Islamabad with 200 pilgrims on board, and both arrived in Saudi Arabia. Two planes from Karachi, carrying 179 and 151 Pakistani Hajj pilgrims, landed in Madina.

The Hajj pilgrims from Pakistan were greeted at the Madina airport by Ahmed Farooq, the Pakistani envoy to Saudi Arabia, DG Hajj Abdul Wahab Soomro, Director Hajj Madina, Ziaur Rehman, and Director Cooperation and Facilitation, Ahmed Nadeem.

June 10, 2024 is the end date of the flight operation, which began on May 9 (today).

As stated by the spokesperson, PIA is offering direct flights from eight Pakistani cities—Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Multan, Quetta, Sialkot, and Sukkur—to Jeddah and Madina this year.

When the national airline first announced its flight schedule, a PIA official claimed that from May 9 to June 10, 2024, 170 flights will carry around 34,000 pilgrims.

According to a national airline representative, 15,000 private pilgrims and 19,000 pilgrims from the government programme would travel via the PIA.

As one of the five pillars of Islam, the Hajj is a holy journey. The Hajj is performed at Makkah, Saudi Arabia, by millions of Muslims every year.

The event occurs annually at the same time, in the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar, Dhul Hijjah, which is a sacred month. Depending on whether the moon is visible, Hajj takes place from the eighth of Dhul Hijjah for five to six days.

Global Muslims celebrate Eidul Adha, a four-day feast, when they spot the new crescent moon.

During a meeting presided over by Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz to assess the progress of the 33 special projects assigned by the chief minister, senior provincial minister Marriyum Aurangzeb made this statement.

The plans to purchase 300 electric buses for Lahore were shared with Punjab’s Chief Minister, Maryam Nawaz, during the meeting.

330 electric buses will be introduced in Punjabi cities besides Lahore. Reviewing the CM’s Special Projects and initiatives took up a full five hours of time.

Furthermore, Aurangzeb told the meeting that the major hospitals’ vaccinations would be finished by June, and that the first phase of building and restoration of rural and basic health centres would be finished by October.

She further mentioned that an investment of Rs. 176 billion will be made to build motorways on important routes. As instructed by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, the senior minister announced the creation of a specific complaint number for each department.

She stated that the Motorway Ambulance service will begin by December, while the Air ambulance service will begin operations by June.

The poliovirus found in sewage samples taken from Karachi South, Karachi Central, Jamshoro, and Hub was genetically connected to the imported YB3A genetic cluster of WPV1, according to the Regional Reference Lab for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH).

There have been 34 districts’ worth of sewage samples this year where the virus has been discovered. An official from the health ministry stated that the YB3A cluster, which vanished from Pakistan in 2021 but persisted in circulation in Afghanistan before being reintroduced through cross-border transmission last year, is present in all positive samples as well as the two human cases that were reported in 2024.

One positive sample from Pishin and three samples from various Karachi areas had been discovered the day before.

Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister, voiced optimism last Friday that Pakistan’s polio epidemic would be eradicated quickly, working with international agencies as well as domestic medical facilities.

In an encounter with a group from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), which was headed by Dr. Christopher Elias, the Chair of the Polio Oversight Board and the President of the Global Development Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the prime minister declared that the government was committed to eliminating the deadly disease from the nation.

Launching a collaborative awareness campaign with the GPEI, the prime minister instructed the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to do so.