QUETTA, April 22: Forty-two research papers were read by local and foreign experts in various sessions of the 7th International Chest Conference, organised by the Pakistan Chest Society.

About 800 eminent specialists and doctors from Pakistan as well as several other countries attended the conferences

Also, discussions were held on the third day of the four-day conference on ‘A look back after the earthquake,’ ‘Earthquake disaster — from tears to smiling’ and ‘Achieving goal in asthma management’.

In one of the sessions, participants observed that 34 per cent male and 6 per cent female students had smoking habit. They stressed that an awareness campaign should be launched to inform people about the hazards of smoking.

Dr Mirza Saifullah Beg of Karachi presented his paper on ‘Drugs resident tuberculosis’. According to him drug resident tuberculosis and MDR is on the rise in Pakistan as second line drugs are expensive and not easily available and have lot of side effects. Presenting his paper, Dr Azfar Hussain of Karachi talked about surgical options in fungal infections of lung.

Others who presented research papers on various aspects of tuberculosis and asthma included Dr Prof Arshad Javed (Peshawar), Dr Javed A. Khan (Karachi), Dr Mukhtar Zaman Afridi (Peshawar), Dr Mehmood Ansari, Dr Sohail Akhtar, Dr Shahina Qayyum, Dr Nisar Rao, Dr Nadeem Razvi (head of Chest Medicine Department of JPMC, Karachi), Dr Farhan Ahmed and Dr Mehmood Ahmed Shawani (Quetta).

PCS ELECTIONS: Meanwhile, following office-bearers of the Pakistan Chest Society (Centre) were elected for 2006-08: Prof Dr Zafar Ali Syed, president; Dr Tahir Saeed, general secretary; Dr Zubair Shaheen, finance secretary; Dr Ashraf Jamal, joint secretary; and, Dr Saqib Saeed, press and publication secretary. The elections were held during the biennial conference which concluded here on Saturday.