LAHORE, Jan 27: Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool has said health is becoming a critical issue as it is not dealt with properly.
He was speaking at the inaugural session of two-day first National Conference on Health Biotechnology jointly organized by the National Commission on Biotechnology (NCB) and University of Health Sciences on Thursday.
The governor said dirty drinking water, pollution and various social issues were contributing to the health problems. On the other hand, the medical education remained non-research oriented leading to no success stories.
Mr Maqbool said it was pity that no vaccine had yet been developed to cure diseases. "Hepatitis, TB and diabetes have been caused by local germs and we have yet to overcome them," he added.
There was a dire need to broaden the horizon of research and develop inexpensive drugs to cure diseases. He stressed that the universities and research organizations should collaborate and develop products required to safeguard health. He said he would ask universities to share resources and come up with joint projects.
The governor said the role of biotechnology was improving as it had applications in agriculture, health and industrial sectors. The Higher Education Commission was also funding good research, he added.
Appreciating holding of conference on real life issues, he said the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission was coming up with scientific answers to certain issues. He lauded the UHS for making international links and developing state-of-the-art laboratories to conduct research.
Meanwhile, the governor told reporters that newspapers should highlight the masses' problems rather than engaging themselves on debating issues like inclusion of religion column in passport, politicians joining different parties and Wana problem.
However, parrying a question about the problem being faced by hundreds of medical students studying at University of Lahore's College of Medicine and Dentistry, he said the UHS had granted provisional affiliation to three private medical colleges.
He said the standard of medical education was improving in public and private colleges owing to the mature examination system. The UHS would continue to struggle to improve the quality and standard of education. He hoped that doctors would no more be required to take different examinations before getting admission to postgraduate programmes abroad.
The governor said biotechnology would be made a part of the medical curriculum.PAEC member (bio sciences) and NCB secretary Dr Kauser Abdullah Malik said biotechnology was one of the fast emerging disciplines of science and technology and the Pakistan government had included it in the six priority disciplines.
He said the PAEC initiated research in biotechnology and molecular biology and researchers were actively involved in development of recombinant DNA vaccines especially for HBV, genotyping of GCV and mapping of mutations of Beta Thalassaemia.
He said PCR-based diagnostics of major infectious diseases had already been optimized and being carried out by several clinical laboratories in the private sector. Dr Malik said the PAEC had also established four modern laboratories for molecular diagnostics at its cancer hospitals in Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad and Karachi.
He said serious efforts were also underway to develop Stem Cell research and to develop cheap processes for producing some of the therapeutic proteins. In all these developments, Dr Malik said, there was a glaring omission that no centre of biotechnology had been set up in any of the medical educational establishments.
UHS vice-chancellor Prof Dr Malik Husain Mubashar said the success in health delivery in any country depended upon its ability to conduct appropriate research. In Pakistan, it was all the more important to provide evidence base for policy making.
He said communication of results of researches to the policy-makers and international scientific community should be the most important target of researchers.
Prof Malik observed that there was very little research in Pakistan despite the fact that medical science had made advances following research. He stressed that analysis of local problems should also be considered.
He said main constraints in the development of research activities were under-developed skills in research methodology, low level of expertise in scientific writing and a lack of motivation and commitment on the part of authorities. "We need to develop a research culture in order to make good the deficiencies," he said. Prof Dr Muhammad Arslan also spoke on the occasion.
