PESHAWAR, Jan 31: NWFP Health Minister Inayatullah Khan has asked the officials to devise a mechanism to ensure the participation of ulema in public awareness initiatives relating to preventable diseases.

The minister issued these directives while presiding over a meeting held here on Wednesday to devise a proper mechanism for involving religious scholars in spreading health messages in an effort to reduce the burden of diseases.

The meeting was attended by religious leaders, health officials and representatives of the WHO and Unicef. Mr Khan stressed the need of formation of a core group of religious scholars to keep close liaison with the Ulema on health issues and also underlined the need for evolving an efficient system to ensure constant contribution of the Ulema in educating masses regarding public health issues.

Similarly, he stressed the need for developing material on public health issues for religious scholars in the light of the Holy Quran and Sunnah.

A number of suggestions were put forth in the meeting to involve religious scholars actively in sensitisation of society about public health problems.

On this occasion a committee, comprising the Unicef provincial chief and the deputy director of the expanded programme on immunisation (EPI), was formed to identify religious scholars for the core group.

Similarly, the committee was also directed to compile terms of references for the core group.