NA panel wants immunisation programme improved. PHOTO: FILE
It is estimated that malaria and tuberculosis (TB) account for more than 25% of all deaths reported every month in Tharparkar, Sindh, due to inadequate treatment facilities offered in the desert district.
The National Assembly Subcommittee on National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination (NHSRC) was informed on Monday that those suffering from these diseases were often prescribed heavy doses of medication without proper medical reports, thereby resulting in complications and often death. The committee met at the Parliament House, and PML-N MNA Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani presided over the meeting.
The committee was informed that Tharparkar is being covered through the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Malaria Control Programme Director Dr Aslam Khan said the malaria programme targeted 24 million people, of which seven million have been covered through the Global Fund.
“There are 66 ‘high risk districts’ but only 38 districts are being covered through the Global Fund,” he said, adding that the programme is facing a shortfall of $325 million in funding for 2015-17.
Dr Khan and National TB Control Programme Manager Dr Ejaz Qadeer said both programmes are suffering due to a shortage of funds and human resources, power outages and unnecessary transfers of staff.
Dr Vankwani asked Dr Khan if he had visited Tharparkar in order to monitor the performance of the malaria programme; Dr Khan said he had yet to do so. “How can one improve the performance of the programme without knowing the ground realities?” questioned Dr Vankwani. He said national programme managers in Sindh and Balochistan would be given two months to improve their performance.
Dr Baseer Achakzai from the NHSRC told the committee that the federal government is dispatching anti-TB drugs to all provinces, without information on how these drugs are being utilised. Committee member Zahra Wadood Fatemi expressed anger at this statement, saying the provincial programme managers must be pressurised to provide adequate information.
Earlier Dr Khan gave a detailed presentation to the committee saying that in 2013, 95 million people of a population of 180 million were at risk for malaria. Around 17.1 million children under the age of five and 3.9 million pregnant women were at risk for the disease, he added. A total of 281,755 cases of malaria were reported in 2013 and of these 35% were reported from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 25% each from Sindh and Balochistan, 12% from the Federally Administered Tribal Area and 3% from Punjab.
Dr Khan pointed out that the malaria control programme contends with an absence of political commitment at all levels, a delay in the release of funds, a lack of ownership of the programme and meager resource allocation by the provinces, control of irrational use of anti-malarial drugs in the private sector, inadequate resources for universal coverage of diagnostic, treatment and prevention services, fragmented malaria surveillance activities and poor coordination of private sector healthcare providers in malaria surveillance activities.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 27th, 2014.
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