ISLAMABAD: The National Institute of Health (NIH) has got the membership of International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI) paying the way for its recognition at the international level.

Moreover, with the technical support and training from the association, it will be possible for the NIH to test samples of life-threatening diseases such as Ebola in Pakistan.

An official of the Ministry of National Health Services, who was not authorised to speak on record, told Dawn that being a signatory to the International Health Regulations and Global Health Security Agenda, Pakistan was bound to stop the transfer of diseases to other countries as well as within the country.

With membership of International Association of National Public Health Institutes, NIH can get technical support to test samples of major diseases locally

“But in case of an outbreak of a disease like Ebola, Pakistan cannot test samples because not a single laboratory in the country is recognised internationally. So samples are sent to Germany, Egypt or any other country to confirm if the suspect was suffering from such a disease,” he said.

Not only does it take many days to receive the results, it is also costly to get a sample tested abroad. Moreover, if a disease spreads in the country, how can it be possible to send hundreds or thousands of samples out of the country, the official added.

For the last many years, the official added, “We had been trying to get the status of a country which can test samples of life-threatening tute in Pakistan and has played an important role in treating and sampling people affected with diseases, we wanted to get the institute recognised at the international level.”

NIH executive director Dr Farnaz Malik told Dawn that in March 2015 a request had been submitted for participating in the IANPHI programmes, led by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, which was now accepted.

“As the NIH has become a member of the association, we will get technical and financial support to upgrade the institute and make it internationally recognised. Once the NIH is upgraded, it will be able to deal with all the diseases and outbreaks in the country.”

Though the NIH has 800 employees, the strength of technical staff is less than 100. Around 100 posts of technical staff are vacant, she said.

“So we will also be able to request the association to arrange training programmes for the technical staff. Moreover, at the moment no proper national data on health is available in Pakistan but because of the capacity building we will be able to hold authentic national level surveys in the country,” she added.

The NIH began as the Bureau of Laboratories in Karachi in June 1948. However, in 1960 a national health centre was established in Islamabad as a unified public health facility whose various units were merged in 1974 into one organisation named National Health Laboratories (NHL). In 1980, the NHL was made an autonomous body of the Ministry of Health through a presidential ordinance under the name of NIH with the principal function to serve as the premier public health services institute and to foster international and regional collaborations through participation in global disease control activities.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2015