ISLAMABAD: Vice Chancellor Air University AVM (retd) Faaiz Amir has said that the Belt and Road Initiative brings lots of opportunities and connectivity in the fields of healthcare and life sciences.
He was addressing to the inaugural session of two-day international conference LIFECON-2018, organized by Fazaia Media College, Air University. The Chief Guest Lt. Gen. Zahid Hameed HI (M), Surgeon General of Pakistan, Former Federal Minister, Co-chair, WHO High Level Commission on NCDs Dr Sania Nishtar, Chinese delegation led by Prof Dr Airong Qian and other prominent healthcare experts from both China and Pakistan were also present on the occasion.
Vice Chancellor AVM (r) Faaiz Amir, in his speech, proposed to formulate China-Pakistan Health Corridor along CPEC for both the nations to benefit. He emphasized that the proposed corridor will boost an effective platform to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the various fields. In this regard, he urged the need to launch various joint ventures to focus on healthcare market. “We need to harness bioengineering, information sciences, data analytics, and system engineering in order to resolve health care challenges,” he said.
The Vice Chancellor also acknowledged that China has the world’s largest mobile healthcare app operators. “In Health China 2030 Plan, Chinese government has placed healthcare as one of the top strategic priorities,” he further said.
Former Federal Minister, Co-chair, WHO High Level Commission on NCDs Dr Sania Nishtar, said that healthcare is not just limited to doctors, nurses and paramedical but its domains extend beyond. She stressed that the health challenges being faced today can be overcome by research and joint collaborations. “We need to focus on universal health system success examples likes that in China, which can easily be adopted in our setup,” she said.
Dr Sania stressed that it is the responsibility of academic institutions to develop human resource to overcome challenges of health field. On the occasion, Chinese scholars from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an also presented their research studies.
Chief Guest of the conference and Surgeon General of Pakistan, Lt. Gen. Zahid HI (M) appreciated the efforts of organizers for putting together this conference. He hoped that the LIFECON-2018 conference will provide a unique and excellent platform for witnessing the overlapping domains of health with other sciences by its rich context and content.
He also distributed souvenirs among speakers, Vice Chancellor Faaiz Amir, Principal Fazaia Medical College Maj Gen (r) Professor Salman Ali, Dr Sania Nishtar, Chair Prof Dr Rizwan Hashim and co-chair Dr Rukhsana Khan of the conference.