Disease surveillance in K-P

The disease surveillance project recently launched in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has the potential to become a model system that can address the havoc caused by preventable diseases that too often result in needless losses of lives in our country. The DFID-funded Integrated Disease Surveillance System will initially run for 18 months in six districts of the province, with the aim being to extend it to other parts of K-P if the project proves successful. The system is intended to prevent common diseases, such as measles, from turning into epidemics. The programme will use the internet and SMS services to facilitate the quick exchange of information and to corroborate data immediately. In case of an emergency, alerts will be promptly issued to ensure timely healthcare reaches residents.

This is a great opportunity for K-P to improve its rate of mortality, particularly with respect to the child mortality rate. Every year, thousands of lives are lost in this country, a majority of them of children under five years of age, due to completely preventable causes. The most vulnerable to disease are children from low-income households who have weak immunity and poor access to nutrition. The burden of our poor healthcare services is mostly borne by the poor and it cannot be stressed enough how important it is to prioritise improving the health infrastructure.

Another important aspect of the Integrated Disease Surveillance System is that it provides an opportunity to collect important statistics. In general, the situation in Pakistan with respect to accumulating data is abysmal, which hinders policy formulation and resource allocation. The country is also vulnerable to both man-made and natural disasters and such a system could be crucial to saving lives in precarious circumstances. Using technology to map health trends may be particularly useful to assist people affected by natural disasters or those who have been forced out of their homes because of conflict. It is hoped that the disease surveillance system is implemented fully and later adopted in other parts of the country too because it is a most pressing need to reduce fatalities that result out of preventable causes.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2016.

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