KARACHI, Nov 15: The city government will establish the country’s first bone marrow transplant institute in cooperation with the private sector.

This was stated by City Nazim Naimatullah Khan, while talking to Pakistan’s first bone marrow transplant surgeon, Dr Tahir S. Shamsi, during a visit to Bismillah Taqi Blood Diseases Centre here on Friday.

Dr Shamsi informed the Nazim that bone marrow transplant was highly expensive and not available in Pakistan. But for the first time it had been made available by Bismillah Taqi Blood Diseases Centre where poor and middle class patients were being provided free treatment.

He said there were some one million people in the country who needed bone marrow transplantation.

“Annually, some 6000 children are born with thalassaemia and 5000 with cancerous blood, and 20,000 are suffering from uncurable blood diseases”, he said stressing the need for a bone marrow transplant centre in Karachi.

The Nazim praised the efforts of the Centre and announced that a complete blood diseases treatment centre would be established in Karachi with the cooperation of the private sector, and the services of Dr Tahir Shamsi would be obtained in that regard. He added that the hospital would consist of 250 beds.

He directed the EDO health to immediately hold a meeting to determine the ways and means of establishing the hospital.—APP