PESHAWAR, April 3: Speakers at a seminar have urged people to put brakes on the burgeoning population to help check growth of lethal diseases taking heavy toll on children owing to lack of resources.

The event was organised on Thursday by an NGO, Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO), at the Forest Institute, University of Peshawar.

The speakers voiced concern over the prevalent dismal healthcare scenario, especially for women and children. According to them, the children, who form almost 50 per cent of the entire population of the country, were the worst victims of the diseases.

A doctor said: “Some 50 million children are born every year in Pakistan, of whom 85 die in every 1,000 births before reaching the age of one year while 116 succumb to death before attaining the age of five years.”

He expressed concern over the infant mortality rate in the country, but said it was better than Afghanistan and African countries.

The total population of Jordan was 50 million, which meant that Pakistan was producing one Jordan every year, he added.

The doctor informed that 13,000 children were born every day, which was affecting the social set up of poor families a great deal.

He was of the view that population explosion was a big problem confronting the country because lack of resources had been a great hindrance in fulfilling health and educational needs of the children.

Unicef, he said, had identified malnutrition as a big problem affecting health of the people.

About 40 per cent of the children up to five years of age were malnourished, who were destined to lead miserable lives in future because unhealthy persons later became burden on their families.

Another speaker said reproductive health had deteriorated to the extent that 30,000 women died annually of pregnancy-related complications whereas 75 mother-would-be died daily. It was lack of education that prompted women to produce more children even at the cost of their lives, he said.

Unsafe potable water was another problem giving rise to water-born diseases like cholera, dysentery and diarrhoea etc., he said, adding that the children were supposed to be the masters of our future, but given their poor health, we could not expect them to lead the nation.

Arshad Haroon of the Strengthening Participatory Organisation, dwelt at length on activities of the organisation. According to him, it was functioning since 1988, and had carried out about 110 projects aiming at welfare of the people.