KARACHI
Sindh Chief Minister Syed 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 with the aim to reduce Infant and Neonatal Mortality.”
This he said on Friday while speaking at the Pakistan Pediatric Association (PPA) Scientific conference. Those who spoke on the occasion, include President-elect PPA Prof. Jamal Raza, Chairman Organizing Committee Prof. Khursheed Abbassi, Co-Chair Organising Committee Prof. Jalal Akbar, Secretary Organising Committee Prof. Habibullah Babar, Dr. Khalid Shafi, Dr. Waseem Jamalvi.
At the outset, Mr. Shab conveyed congratulations to the Pakistan Pediatric Association (PPA) for organizing such a major international scientific event in Sindh which is held after every 10 years. Mr. Shah said that the Pediatric Association has been organizing a major scientific conference to address various health issues in pediatric medicine, and he hoped that they 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 Pakistan Pediatric Association has in the past been supporting all the health-related activities of his government, especially the child health initiatives, immunization & nutrition programs, and 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 Shah said that Pakistan has a population of over 80 million children and only 21 percent live in urban areas. “The rest of the children who live in rural areas are usually deprived of various resources such as clean water and 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.
“This has been made worse by the Pandemic of COVID-19, taking its toll, and most recently due to unprecedented natural disasters of rains and floods,” he said and added 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 bridges and affected 16 million children.
Murad Shah said that 650,000 pregnancies were affected with a death toll of over 1500, including 552 children. He added that 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 making improvements with major investments in the health sector to improve various health indicators of Sindh,” he said and added as far as child health is concerned, we understand that we are facing some major challenges. Mr. Shah said that his government has been fighting a war against polio for many years.
“We are faced with the challenge of malnutrition, low immunization coverage, and rampant infectious diseases like Pneumonia, Diarrhea, Dengue, Malaria, tuberculosis, and others,” he said and 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,” he said and added “we have now established a separate institute `Sindh Institute of Child Health & Neonatology’ with the vision to especially address the critical area of newborn care and specialty-oriented childhood diseases with an aim to reduce Infant and Neonatal Mortality.
The CM said that the first such center has started functioning in Korangi at Sindh Government Hospital Korangi-5. He announced that he was planning to expand the network to Sukkur, Larkana, Kamber- Shahdadkot, and Shikarpur districts and eventually all over Sindh.
The CM hoped that the conference with the best minds in the Pediatric world would come up with a road map for the reduction in neonatal, infant, and child mortality at its conclusion.
