ISLAMABAD, May 10: Health Minister Muhammad Nasir Khan on Saturday said number of patients of AIDS, cancer and hepatitis was increasing in the country while millions of people regardless of age and sex have adopted smoking habit.
“Unfortunately, millions of patients of malaria and tuberculosis (TB) in our country are reemerging,” the minister said while speaking at a three-day conference on Serious Health Hazards organized by the Foundation for the Preferment of Pharmaceutical Sciences here at a local hotel.
The conference was organized to sensitize the public on serious health hazards like SARS, AIDS, hepatitis, cancer, tuberculosis and malaria as well as smoking and drug & pesticide residues.
The minister said the present era was facing a great challenge of emerging new diseases and SARS and AIDS were the current examples.
Though, these ailments have provoked the scientists, pharmacists and health workers to intensify their efforts for exploring new ways of treatment, the medical science was capable of treating most of the diseases, he said. “Many deadly enemies of the mankind in the past, like polio and plague have now been completely eradicated from the world due to latest development in the medical field.”
He said millions of people in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan had been caught by SARS and till today, over 8,000 people had been affected by SARS and nearly 500 patients had reportedly been died in different parts of the world. “The socio- economic life of the affected parts of the world, which was unfortunately not very far away from us, has been greatly disturbed.”
He claimed that not a single case of SARS had been reported in Pakistan so far but “we must be fully aware of the danger and educate our people about it.” Mass awareness regarding the cause, reasons and preventive measures would greatly help us to be safe and secure from this wide spread evil, he said.
Dr Khalif Bile Mohamud, the WHO representative in Pakistan, described the conference as not less than any international event and that the topics selected were the most important and the need of the time.
Rauf Khalid, the chairman of quality control, stressed the need for developing contingency plan to meet likely health hazards saying no government alone could handle such colossal tasks. “It requires a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional initiative where these likely hazards might be addressed frankly and honestly. „#„# He said Pakistan being a third world country was not privileged to have personalized scientific information through internet. “To create awareness about the emerging health hazards, we must first evolve person-centred approach not patient centred approach,” he said.