ISLAMABAD, Feb 2: The World Health Organization (WHO) has appreciated Pakistan government’s initiatives of developing institutional and technical capacities for rehabilitation and care of persons rendered disabled during the October 8 earthquake.

WHO Representative to Pakistan Dr Khalif Bile Mohamud, in a letter to Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan, said the outstanding initiatives taken by the Ministry of Health under his leadership had significantly advanced the national capacity in different aspects of the health sector.

Although, the earthquake brought great destruction to a large area of north Pakistan, the efforts made by the government to provide health cover to the affected population would also benefit other parts of the country in the long run.

The WHO representative also mentioned different efforts of the ministry like building 200-bed facilities in collaboration with the WHO and Unicef in Islamabad, and obtaining from the government extra budgetary support of Rs70 million for the National Institute Health’s Convalescence and Rehabilitation Centre to upgrade its equipment and human resource capacity.

This is another major step taken to significantly improve the quality of care for the patients and establish a strong referral institution in the capital.

Dr Mohamud assured the health minister that the WHO would remain a strong partner of the health ministry in carrying forward such positive endeavours.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, the health ministry said the quality of drugs in Pakistan had improved which was evident from the fact that exports of medicines had increased to over $52 million to 70 countries of Asia, Africa, Europe and America.

At present, over 80 national pharmaceutical manufacturing units in the country are ISO certified and many more are in the process of obtaining the same.

About 400 products of 20 multinational companies are being manufactured by the national companies. Specialized medical institutions like the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology, Rawalpindi, Agha Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital, Lahore, and the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Karachi, are increasingly using locally- manufactured drugs which proves efficacy of drugs manufactured in Pakistan.

Referring to the concern about spurious drugs, the ministry said official reports from drug testing laboratories had suggested that the incidence of spurious drugs in Pakistan was only 0.4 per cent.