Eat less, walk more, says Dr Sultan

Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan on Monday said that the inclusion of diabetes as a subject in the general curriculum was on the cards to make the children aware of the disease.

Speaking in a dialogue on 'Diabetes - a national challenge' held at a local hotel here, the SAPM that our diabetic patterns had become bad, that is why the talks regarding inclusion in curriculum were under way with the ministry of education.

He said, "eat less, walk more - it is a simple, short but significant sentence, which appropriately describes a healthy lifestyle."

SAPM that healthy activities had diminished from our society and there was a dire need of reviving them. He said that the cricket was there, which was playing an important role as a healthy activity.

Dr Faisal said that it was high time to create healthy environment by various activities to overcome the diseases like diabetes.

Dr Akram Sultan, Prof Zaman Shaikh, Prof Abdul Basit, Dr Seema and others also highlighted the importance of overcoming the diabetes challenges in Pakistan.

They said that the treatment of diabetes was very costly. The panellists also stressed the need for raising public awareness of the diabetes. They said that the primary prevention should be main focus to avert the diabetes ailment.

Read More: ‘More research needed on safe fasting with diabetes’

DRAP lab opens

During formal inauguration of Drugs Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) on Monday, Dr Sultan said DRAP's oversight is to ensure availability of quality therapeutic items in the country. Quality surveillance, existence of a modern, functional, and state of the art laboratory was essential. And, he continued, CDL had been made as international standard laboratory, which would greatly help in regulating medicine market - from manufacturing to the consumers.

Such information could help the government authorities to act swiftly against the elements selling spurious medicines and thus could prevent any possible serious incident risking thousands of lives.

SAPM assured all possible logistic and human capital support to this lab to further enhance its role at national and international level. To a question from media, SAPM said the government was working on to ensure realistic, balanced and sustained prices of medicine to protect the consumers and pharmaceutical industry as well.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2021.