WHO to help revive 150 healthcare centres

The World Health Organization (WHO) will collaborate with the Sindh government to rehabilitate 150 primary healthcare facilities in 21 flood-affected districts.

Sindh Minister of Health and Population Welfare of Sindh Dr Azra Pechuho met WHO representative in Pakistan Dr Palitha Gunarathna Mahipala at the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) to sign an MoU in this regard on Friday.

Dr Pechuho and WHO representative Dr. Mahipala discussed the solarization of various vaccine storage facilities in the province as well as the provision of vaccine for children who have not received any doses yet. They will be targeted with the help of WHO and the Expanded Programme on Immunizatio (EPI).

The health minister suggested that there should be specific places for vaccination to reduce the distance traveled by the community. The people should be informed about these designated places so that they can easily bring children for vaccination.

The minister also thanked WHO for all the support it has provided in the province and the work it continues to do in partnership with the health department.

New Challenges

Dr Mahipala has said that Covid-19 is no longer a pandemic. The spread of the virus was declining rapidly. However, new variants of the virus continue to emerge and functional genomic sequencing labs are indispensable to deal with such variants, he added. One of the five genomic sequencing labs in Pakistan is located at Dow University.

He expressed these views while addressing a ceremony held at Dow University of Health Sciences on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the World Health Organization and World Health Day. Dr Mahipala said that according to the Universal Health Coverage Index, about fifty percent of people in Pakistan have access to basic health facilities.

He said that small pox emerged as a disease in 1806 and in 1980 the World Health Organization declared that small pox was eradicated from the world. The campaign to eradication polio started in 1988 but it has not been possible to eradicate polio from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Professor Muhammad Saeed Qureshi, the university's vice chancellor, said that the university was tasked the Infectious Diseases Hospital during the coronavirus, and it continues to treat infectious diseases even after the pandemic.

During the last three months, 36 children were admitted to the hospital with diphtheria although diphtheria had been eradicated. Another 13 children were admitted with measles during the same period, apparently due to lack of immunization, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th, 2023.