KARACHI: Health exp­erts on Thursday said Pakistan’s five per cent population (approximately 10 million people) were stroke patients as every year thousands of people fall victim to stroke whose lives could be saved through modern treatment.

Leading neurologists expressed these views at a press conference at a hotel in connection with World Brain Day.

Prof Shaukat Ali Khan, ex-president, Pakistan Society of Neurology, Prof Mohammad Wasay, president Neurology Awareness and Research Foundation (NARF) and Pakistan Stroke Society, Prof Khalid Sher, head of neurology at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Prof Arif Herekar, head of neurology at Baqai Medical University, Dr Ahmed Salman Ghori, Dr Tabassam Jafery, Dr Memona Siddiqui, and Dr Abdul Malik spoke at the briefing.

They said World Brain Day was an initiative of the World Federation of Neurology which was observed annually for creating awareness, prevention, treatment and research vis-a-vis cerebral diseases.

Pakistan is among 119 countries which observes the day on July 22. The chief cause behind the initiative was creating awareness on a global scale.

The organisers said this year’s theme of World Brain Day was ‘Stroke is a brain attack: Prevent it — treat it’.

Experts said Pakistan was the sixth most populous country with close to 200m population. The ratio of non-communicable diseases in the country was 41pc.

They said people in Pakistan held the misperception for long that stroke was an incurable disease and a patient was believed to suffer the disease for life.

Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2017