ISLAMABAD, Feb 7: The government on Tuesday directed all federal government medical institutions to get their entire staff screened for hepatitis to ensure that health care professionals are not carriers of this disease.

Similarly the professional health departments have also been advised to undertake similar exercise, Secretary Health Anwar Mehmood told a high-level meeting held here on Tuesday.

Presided over by Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan, the meeting decided that a health caravan, led by the minister, would visit different tent villages in the earthquake areas of Muzaffarabad next week.

The caravan will also include the representatives of donor agencies in Pakistan, a team of doctors and paramedics and senior officials of the health ministry. The objective of the visit was to provide relief to the survivors and to assess health conditions in the affected areas and will also assess the medical requirements for the coming summer season to avoid any epidemic of disease.

It was also decided that the health minister would open the spinal injury unit at the National Institute for Handicapped (NIHd), Islamabad, next week.

The government has set up three spinal injury units each at NIHd, the Pakistan institute of medical sciences (Pims) Satellite Hospital NIH and the Cantonment General Hospital (CGH).

The spinal injury unit set up at NIHd, in collaboration with Unicef, would primarily be the centre with complete rehabilitation facilities for women and children.

The health ministry has also recruited 100 doctors on contract basis to serve in the earthquake-hit areas of the AJK, the meeting was apprised. Of these, 45 doctors were posted at Pims, 30 at the Federal Government Services Hospital (FGSH) and 25 at NIHd.

However, 38 doctors joined Pims, 16 FGSH while 14 joined NIHd. On joining they were directed to report to the secretary health AJK for further posting in earthquake affected areas.

Most of these doctors did not report to the secretary health AJK. Accordingly the services of the doctors who failed to report for duty are being terminated and the doctors in the waiting list are issued appointment letters for posting in the earthquake hit areas.