China-Pakistan health corridor along CPEC proposed

China seen as world’s largest mobile healthcare app operator

Air University Vice Chancellor Air Vice Marshal (retd) Faaiz Amir has said that the Belt and Road Initiative brings a lot of opportunities and connectivity in the fields of healthcare and life sciences.

He was addressing the inaugural session of a two-day international conference LIFECON-2018, organised by Fazaia Media College, Air University. Surgeon General Lt Gen CPECZahid Hameed, WHO Commission on NCDs Co Chair Dr Sania Nishtar, Chinese delegation led by Dr Airong Qian and other prominent healthcare experts from both China and Pakistan were also present on the occasion.



AVM (retd) Amir proposed to formulate China-Pakistan Health Corridor along CPEC for both the nations to benefit. He emphasised that the proposed corridor will be an effective platform to strengthen bilateral cooperation in various fields.

In this regard, he urged the need to launch various joint ventures to focus on healthcare market. “We need to harness bioengineering, information sciences, data analytics, and system engineering in order to resolve health care challenges,” he said. The Vice Chancellor also acknowledged that China has the world’s largest mobile healthcare app operators. “In Health China 2030 Plan, Chinese government has placed healthcare as one of the top strategic priorities,” he added.

Former Federal Minister and Co-Chair, WHO High Level Commission on NCDs Dr Sania Nishtar said that healthcare is not just limited to doctors, nurses and paramedical staff but its domains extend beyond. She stressed that the health challenges being faced today can be overcome by research and joint collaborations. “We need to focus on universal health system success examples like those in China, which can easily be adopted in our setup,” she said.



Dr Sania stressed that it is the responsibility of academic institutions to develop human resource to overcome challenges of health field.  On the occasion, Chinese scholars from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an also presented their research studies.

Chief Guest of the conference Surgeon General of Pakistan Lt. Gen. Zahid HI (M) appreciated the efforts of organisers for putting together this conference. He hoped that the LIFECON-2018 conference will provide a unique and excellent platform for witnessing the overlapping domains of health with other sciences by its rich context and content.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2018.