LARKANA, June 13: The Pakistan Medical and Research Council (PMRC) has agreed, in principle, to revive its abandoned centre in the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Medical University (SBBMU) Larkana to restart research activities at the campus.

It was revealed by the Executive Director of the PMRC, Dr Huma Qureshi, in response to a letter addressed to the federal minister for Science and Technology Mir Changez Khan by the Vice Chancellor of the SBBMU, Larkana, Professor Dr Akbar Haider Soomro on April 25.

In a letter written by her on behest of the federal ministry of science and technology on June 7 to the VC of SBBMU, she had agreed, in principle, to re-open the PMRC centre in the university.

She said in the current month the management of PMRC would hold a meeting with the faculty members of SBBMU.

The PMRC expressed its happiness over the interest shown by the management of SBBMU in research activities, said Dr Huma Qureshi in her letter.

She said PMRC is a national body, which facilitated health research in the country and, for the purpose, 12 research centres have been established in under-graduate and post-graduate institutions all over the country. The national consultation demanded shift in the policy and directed to focus only on setting up of specialised research centres, she added.

Currently the PMRC centres in the country were specialising in the field of Communicable diseases, Non-communicable diseases, Gastrointestinal and Liver diseases, mental and maternal and child health.

Talking to 'Dawn' here on Monday, Professor Dr Soomro

said that the centre was established in Chandka Medical College in 1985, which operated satisfactorily and proved productive for many research projects of the PMRC. All of sudden, funds to carry out research were stopped in 1999 and subsequently the centre was closed.

The university, he added, had already kicked-off a process of collecting data about different diseases in southern Sindh through department of community medicine by the students of this university. In the recent symposium, students of SBBMU had presented 20 research papers which the participants had appreciated, he added.

The SBBMU has expressed undertaking research work in the field of gastrointestinal and liver diseases, the VC said and appointed Professor Hakim Abro as focal person and asked him to arrange a meeting with the dean faculty of medicine and the Executive Director, PMRC, on June 28 to finalise the plan for early revival of the centre at SBBMU, Larkana.

Replying to a question, the VC said that the university would have its first intake in the Chandka Dental College, Larkana in October 2011. Terming it a positive step, he said in the first batch, according to the policy framed by Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), 50 candidates would be given admission in the dental college. He said equipment costing Rs50 million had already been purchased and 25 machines, in the first phase, would be installed to run the college.

He said PC-I of Rs160 million had been submitted with the government. So far, the government had released an amount of Rs91million, he said and added that under the conditions only Rs23 million, as revenue component, were urgently required to start with the college while rest of the amount ---Rs46 million-- as capital cost would be released later to continue the project.