I CAME across an advertisement of the Ministry of Zakat and Ushr, Government of Pakistan, in your newspaper on Sept 7, titled 'Helping hands for miserable' and asking for Zakat donations for leprosy patients.

I have worked in close association with the National Leprosy Control Programme and am well aware of its structure and function. It has three major partners, the government Health Department and two NGOs, namely Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre (MALC -- working in Sindh, Balochistan, the NWFP, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir) and Aid to Leprosy Patients (ALP - working in Punjab and Hazara division of the NWFP), together with the support of the German Leprosy/TB Relief Association (GLRA/DAHW).

The 170 leprosy clinics in the country (157 in areas served by MALC) are housed in government district hospitals and manned by government paramedical workers. But these workers are trained at the National Institute of Leprosy run by MALC in Karachi.

The NGOs arrange supply and distribution of antileprosy medicines, vehicles and POL for mobile field teams and also provide these workers with financial incentives.

It is the NGOs' responsibility to plan, ensure implementation, monitor and evaluate the different components of the programme, including rehabilitation of patients and their families.

In my humble opinion, it should be the two NGOs in their respective areas that should be the recipients of any Zakat donations. MALC has been taking care of the needs of its needy patients through 'Dr Zarina Fazelbhoy Memorial Zakat Fund' started in the name of Pakistan's first Muslim leprologist, who had been associated with the NGO since the time of its inception in 1960s until her death in the late 1990s.

DR MANSOOR AHMED

Karachi