PESHAWAR, Oct 5: NWFP Health Minister Dr Meher Taj Roghani has urged the people to take preventive measures against diseases and vaccinate their children in time to save them from falling prey to deadly epidemics.

Inaugurating the vaccination centre at Rehman Medical Institute (RMI) at Hayatabad Township on Friday night, she lamented that even the people belonging to medical community did not get their children vaccinated, let alone the general public.

Prevention was far better than cure, she stressed, because it was less expensive than treatment, and the poor county like Pakistan could not afford spending huge sum of money on the treatment of the people.

She administered vaccine to a six-month-old child Deyan to declare open the first vaccination centre in the private sector.

Dr Roghani was all praise for the management of the RMI for its endeavours to help the people in getting their children vaccinated. There was a strong need to sensitise the people regarding the preventive measures against killer diseases, because these were cost-effective as well as result-oriented, said the minister, who herself is a retired paediatrician. The vaccination ratio in the province was 75 per cent in 1970 which had declined to a figure of less than 55 per cent in 2002, she deplored.

She said even Bangladesh and India had successfully conducted the vaccination drives whereas in Pakistan, the infective diseases were taking a heavy toll on the people. Abuse of syringes was the main cause of hepatitis in this part of the country, because 70 per cent of the hepatitis patients were infected through syringes.

RMI FOUNDER: On the occasion, RMI founder Prof Dr Mohammad Rehman said the sole purpose to establish the RMI in the province was to give a gift to its people.