ISLAMABAD, Aug 4: The Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec) on Thursday approved four major health projects costing over Rs18 billion and relating to prevention and control of blindness and hepatitis infections, building a hospital for chest diseases and expanding the immunization programme.

A delighted Health Secretary Anwer Mehmood told Dawn that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz who presided over the Ecnec meeting also directed the health ministry to prepare separate proposals for developing self-contained tower buildings with state-of-the-art medical facilities in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and the Jinnah Post Graduate Medical College (JPMC).

The projects which have been approved are Prevention and Control of Hepatitis Infection, National Programme for Prevention and Control of Blindness in Pakistan 2005-10, Establishment of 400-bed Hospital and Chest Disease Centre at Rawalpindi and an Expanded Immunization Programme (EPI) and Control of Diarrheal Diseases (CDD).

EPI, approved at a cost of Rs11.47 billion, is meant to provide vaccination coverage throughout the country for seven preventable diseases namely tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, diphtheria, pertussis, neo-natal tetanus, hepatitis-B and measles.

Immunization services against these diseases will be provided by static centres as well as mobile teams all over the country.

A national programme for prevention and control of hepatitis infection was approved at a cost of Rs2.59 billion.

The project aims to achieve vaccination against hepatitis B virus, create facilities to screen hepatitis B and C patients in all the hospitals upto tehsil headquarters hospitals, use disposable syringes at the national and provincial level by 2006 and establish federal and provincial cells for epidemic investigation.

The national programme for control of blindness was approved at a total cost of Rs2.774 billion. It envisages strengthening and upgradation of existing eye care services at tehsil and district headquarters and tertiary care hospitals through provision of equipment and training, human resource development, disease control, effective management and advocacy, research development and strengthening of research capacity.

The project to establish a hospital for women and a chest diseases centre in Rawalpindi at a total cost of Rs1.3 billion was approved to provide specialized, modern and state-of-the-art treatment facilities to patients, especially women living in Rawalpindi.

This hospital will be under the federal government which would also meet its running cost.

Already Rs100 million have been released to initiate construction work of the project, the health secretary said.