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LAHORE, Oct 14: The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission plans to set up five more nuclear medicine centres for diagnosis and treatment of cancer, Dawn learnt through official sources on Sunday.
The PAEC is already running over a dozen nuclear medicine centres across the country.
The new centres will be set up at Gujranwala, Dera Ismail Khan, Swat, Gilgit and Nawabshah. The land, building and equipment for the Gujranwala centre will be provided by a philanthropist. Expenditure for all others will be met by the PAEC.
Facilities at the centres will be similar, the sources said. The establishment of more centres will reduce load on the existing ones.
The PAEC is also setting up a chain of breast care centres in the country to control breast cancer. The PAEC is launching the project under instructions from the government.
In the long run, the sources said the government planned to set up a nuclear medicine centre and a breast care centre at every district headquarters. The sources said arrangements would be made to provide competent doctors for the new centres.
CONFERENCES: The situation arising out of the US attacks on Afghanistan has also affected the PAEC and it has had to postpone two important international conferences scheduled for November. Delegates from other countries have expressed their inability to travel to Pakistan under the circumstances.
According to sources, a total of 130 delegates from 30 countries had been invited to a conference to be held in Lahore from Nov 5 to 9. Another conference on cotton biotechnology was to be held at the NIBGE, Faisalabad, from Nov 12 to 15. Invitations had been extended to some 30 delegates from two dozen countries.
In view of the situation in neighbouring Afghanistan the fact that several airlines have suspended flights to Pakistan, the organizers don’t know when they will be able to hold these conferences.
