October 22, 2005	Saturday	Ramzan 17, 1426

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 21: The Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) have deployed around 600 doctors, 64 nurses and 104 paramedics in the field hospitals set up in the quake-hit areas of Azad Kashmir and the NWFP.

Presiding over a meeting of the National Disaster Management Committee here on Friday, Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan said these hospitals were being regularly supplied with necessary medicines and equipment and there was no shortage of any item.

The meeting decided to release the photographs of the still unclaimed children and women admitted in different hospitals of Islamabad and Rawalpindi on both electronic and print media for identification by their relatives.

Health Secretary Syed Anwar Mehmood appealed for blood donations in view of the increasing flow of patients to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims).

Since many roads have now been opened and access of rescue teams improved to difficult areas, the hospitals are receiving more patients in the federal capital hospitals.

The meeting was told that 24 fumigation teams had been dispatched to the AJK and 18 to Mansehra to ward off the threat of outbreak of epidemics.

The meeting was also told that there was no dearth of plastic surgeons in Pims and many surgeons, who had arrived from abroad, were attending to the severely injured patients in the hospital.

The health secretary told the meeting that tetanus vaccine had been made available in all hospitals where injured people were being treated. It has been made mandatory for all patients admitted to the health facilities and field hospitals to receive immunisation against tetanus.

The twin cities hospitals have received around 12,000 patients from the quake-hit areas and Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences received 200 patients on Friday which included 69 children.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Muhammad Nasir Khan assured the National Assembly that the government had imported a quarter million doses of anti-tetanus and measles vaccines for the quake victims.

Speaking on a point of order, he said the hospitals had ample stocks of vaccines.

He said an immunisation campaign had been launched to save the injured from different diseases. About spread of epidemics, he told the house that there was no report of the spread of epidemics in the quake-affected areas.

The minister said 20 teams of psychiatrists had been sent for rehabilitation of children. He said the government was in contact with the Australian and the US authorities for import of artificial limbs. He said the government would take care of un- attended children.

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