PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has expressed its willingness to continue the disease early warning system in view of its improved health indicators and take its control within a month.

The World Health Organisation in collaboration with the provincial health department had started the disease early warning system (Dews) in Battagram, Abbottabad, Mansehra, Kohistan and Shangla districts following the 2005 earthquake. The initiative was aimed at recording diseases’ prevalence in the calamity-affected districts and taking immediate steps to deal with medical emergencies.

The WHO had asked the government to make arrangements for the maintenance of Dews from its own resources. According to officials, the government had respondent positively to the suggestion and expressed its willingness to take over Dews.

They said that stoppage of financial assistance by the WHO would not affect Dews because the global health body had given the local staff immense technical know-how due to which the health department could now efficiently run the programme.

They said that on the government’s request the WHO had extended the programme to 14 more districts and three tribal agencies in view of mass exodus from conflict-hit areas in 2009. Under the system, a surveillance system in basic health facilities and district headquarters hospitals helped the department to take appropriate preventive measures to cope with disease outbreaks and epidemics among vulnerable people.

Later, the model was also adopted in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan. However, the WHO, which has been spending $1m every year on DEWS in Pakistan, had decided to ask the respective departments to take over the programme.

The WHO will be giving only technical assistance at the provincial level once the programme is transferred to the government. It began with one surveillance officer who looked after two districts initially when Dews started. “The government will take over the programme within a month,” said the officials.

They said that the decision to continue Dews was based on scientific evidence. They said that Dews was the world’s largest system recording data of 50 diseases.

They said that the WHO had conveyed to the government to run Dews, arguing that doctors and health professionals had been trained in every district and the department had complete infrastructure everywhere. However, it will continue to provide technical assistance to the government on Dews and maintenance of online data through a network that was already in place.

The health department has agreed to continue the programme in view of results from the Dews-covered districts.

“The province does not have any mechanism except Dews and we cannot take chances in view of disasters, both man-made and natural,” the officials said.

They said that it was because of Dews that the department had been getting health statistics and record of dengue and other major public health problems in affected areas of the province.

“We have to make it a government programme to have a clear picture of diseases burden in flood-affected areas or prevalence of diseases among displaced people, etc,” they said.