PESHAWAR, Sept 14: The Pakistan Medical Association has announced holding of seminar on Monday to raise awareness about the healthcare issues and ailments among the masses.

Speaking at a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Saturday, Dr Umar Ayub Khan, the president of the PMA, NWFP said that an international seminar would be held on Monday where the medical experts from abroad would deliberate upon the topics ‘Liver Diseases in Pregnancy’, ‘Chronic Liver Diseases in NWFP’, Eradication of Polio in NWFP’ and would throw light on important and basic health-related issues.

The PMA office-bearers Dr Musarrat Khalid, Dr Akbar Khalil and Dr Ahmad Jamal were also present on the occasion.

He said osteoporosis was an old-aged specific diseases which caused bone fractures in old people and therefore experts had been invited to the seminar to discuss this and many other diseases which he said were preventable and needed care to keep them at bay.

He said medical experts would discuss infective diseases, like hepatitis and pregnancy-related problems and eradication of polio in the NWFP.

He said that the PMA had already held seminars in Karachi and Lahore to aware people about these diseases. Dr Khan said that the pregnancy-related problems were taking heavy tolls on the lives of the mothers because most of the deliveries were attended to by unqualified birth attendants in rural areas.

Similarly, he said people died of preventable diseases due to lack of awareness regarding the healthcare issues.

Many of these ailments, he said, were preventable but lack of education, (about diseases) had been proving dangerous. Once, the people get medical education, they would be able to improve their lifestyles, he said.

The PMA, he said, had provided anti-hepatitis vaccines to 30,000 people free of cost and was striving hard to raise awareness among the people through media, walks and seminars. In this connection, he said the PMA would hold a three -day seminar in December.