Healthy children must for national progress: CM Murad

Says health situation has worsened in Sindh after Covid, floods

KARACHI:

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that without healthy children, a nation cannot have a healthy future.

Speaking at the Pakistan Pediatric Association (PPA) Scientific conference, CM said, "We have been addressing the issues with effective polio
campaigns, vaccination drives like typhoid and measles-rubella., and others with the aim to reduce infant and neonatal mortality".

On the occasion, Murad conveyed congratulations to the PPA for organising such a major international scientific event in Sindh. CM Murad said that the Paediatric Association has been organising scientific conferences to address various health issues in paediatric medicine.

He hoped the association would come up with some solutions and actions for the current health situation after the devastating flood. The CM was appreciative of the fact that the PPA in the past has been supporting all the health-related activities of his government, especially the child health initiatives, immunisation and nutrition programmes, such as polio campaigns.

He added that the PPA has also played a supportive role in holding medical camps in various parts of the province during the recent flood disaster.

Murad Ali Shah said that Pakistan has a population of over 80 million children and only 21% live in urban areas. "The rest of the children who
live in rural areas are usually deprived of various resources such as clean water, food, education, and health services," he deplored.

The CM said that the last few years have been very challenging with all the financial constraints and challenges. He said that the health situation in the province has been worsened due to the pandemic of COVID-19 and the recent disasters of rains and floods.

He added that the flood has inundated nearly a third of Pakistan, affected nearly 33 million people including 16 million children, rendered 7.6 million displaced, destroyed 3.6 million acres of crops, perished more than 750,000 live stocks, damaged 24000 schools, destroyed thousands of km roads and affected 16 million children.

CM Murad said that 650,000 pregnancies were affected with a death toll of over 1500, including 552 children, whereas the estimated economic cost to the country was $30 billion.

The CM said that despite all these issues, health has been a major priority of our government. "We have increased our health budget over the years and made improvements with major investments in the health sector to improve various health indicators of Sindh," he said.

"As far as child health is concerned, we understand that we are facing some major challenges," he maintained.

Murad said that his government has been fighting a war against polio for many years. The government is also facing the challenge of malnutrition, low immunisation coverage, and rampant infectious diseases like pneumonia, diarrhea, dengue, malaria, tuberculosis, and others, he said.

The CM added, "most of all, we are faced with high infant mortality, and one of the highest newborn mortality in the world". Murad Ali Shah said that without healthy children, a nation cannot have a healthy future.

"We have been addressing all these issues with effective polio campaigns, vaccination drives like typhoid and measles-rubella, and others. Besides such campaigns, the government has established a separate institute called `The Sindh Institute of Child Health & Neonatology’ with the vision to especially address the critical area of newborn care and speciality-oriented childhood diseases.