ISLAMABAD: Oct 4: The health experts on Wednesday sounded alarms on Pakistan’s highest infant mortality rate in the region and noted that pneumonia kills 14 % children in Pakistan before reaching to the age of five years.
The heath experts made various proposals to improve Pakistan’s basic health facility to improve Pakistan’s performance in this key area and save the children from deadly diseases like pneumonia at a workshop titled as “ Breathing for tomorrow: Advances in respiratory health” organized by Neoveptive Solutions in collaboration with IRF, NICH , UK aid Respire.
The health policy-makers , the representatives of Pakistan’s global partners and health sector professionals attended the workshop.
Dr Khawaja Masood Ahmad National Coordinator Ministry of National Health Services Regulation Coordination (NHSRC) said the policy framework was in place in the country to provide the best medical facilities at health centres. He assured full support to the organizers to organize such events to sensitise the public on key health issues like U5 pneumonia. He said health services were very costly across the globe and Pakistan was lucky country where any patient can walk- in in any hospital to get health facilities.
Dr Rai Asghar of Pakistan Pediatric Association gave a very important presentation to the participants of the workshop. He citied three basic reasons of alarming level of death rate among infants and children up to the age of five years. He said a leading reason of pneumonia in infants and small children was lack of breast feeding by mothers in Pakistan. He said there was a great need to inspire mothers to persuade them to understand importance of breast feeding to the infants and small children. He claimed that low immunization was another major reason of high rate of death of infants in Pakistan. Mr Rai held the professional responsible of high rate of mortality of infants in Pakistan. He said “ As professional I must accept that we as professionals have failed to deliver our duty to sensitise a mother that breast feeding and immunization can protect their children’s lives”.
Dr Zaeem Zia, District Health Officer (DHO) Islamabad said Pakistan is fast improving in basic health delivery and in next few years it will definitely control death rate among infants and small kids . He said in federal territory 19 basic health units were providing basic facilities to the people. Dr Zaeem Zia argued that there was much space available for improvement in basic and primary healthcare facility services and the government was making its best efforts for providing standard facilities to the people of Pakistan at their doorsteps.
Dr Hana Mahmood, Director Research Neoveptive Solutions, gave a detailed presentation on Neoveptive Solutions work done in the area of infant health on the occasion. She said Neoveptive Solutions was working on various projects to improve situation in Pakistan regarding creating awareness among the public on as to how dangerous pneumonia was for infants and children under the age of five year and how Pakistan could improve basic health delivery in this area to protect the children