PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has appointed Dr Shaheen Afridi as new director-general health services.

She replaced Dr Niaz Mohammad, who got retired. Dr Shaheen Afridi, a BPS-19 officer, worked as managing director of Health Foundation before her new appointment.

She is second woman management cadre doctor in the province to hold the position. Dr Shabina Raza, now country director of Nutrition International, was appointed director general health in 2017.

Dr Shaheen said that health department would focus on prevention and control of Covid-19 pandemic as usual but other sections like reproductive health, family planning reproductive health, nutrition, TB, EPI and malaria etc would be further strengthened with measures to safeguard public against avoidable health problems.

Dr Shaheen, a 1988 graduate of Khyber Medical College, said that burden of common diseases would be handled through inspectoral approach in collaboration with education and other line departments.

She said that hospitals were providing healthcare services to people infected with Covid-19 and other sicknesses. She added that dissemination of information regarding prevention of diseases was of potential significance.

Meanwhile, the province recorded 199 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday.

Dr Shaheen said that health department’s response to Covid-19 had been appreciated by World Health Organisation. She said that vaccination was in progress to immunise and protect people against the virus. A detailed analysis would be carried out to identify the gaps in different programmes in consultation with the relevant officials, she added.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2022