Month: June 2018

KARACHI:Shortage of equipment and staff affects Pakistan’s health system, while malnutrition, ill-health and diseases are barriers to economic growth. There is a dire need to expand services delivery and address the shortfall in health-related human resources and making better use of technology.

“Public-private partnership needs to be encouraged and coverage of public health programmes like TB, Malaria, Hepatitis and other communicable diseases also needs to be expanded. Pakistan has a mix of public and private health service delivery system,” according to new Pakistan Economic survey.

Under 18th Constitutional Amendment, health service delivery has been transferred to the provinces. Pakistan Vision 2025, which was prepared in consultation with provinces, provides a roadmap which includes reducing the widespread prevalence of communicable diseases, disease surveillance, addressing inadequacies in primary-secondary health care facilities, correcting rural-urban biases, bridging basic nutritional gaps and improving the pharmaceutical sector to ensure the availability, affordability and quality of medication drugs.

An inter-sectoral cooperation and sector-wide approaches are required to achieve the pioneering goals in the years ahead for which, there is a dire need to increase resource allocation, strengthening primary health care services and motivating the human resources employed in the health sector by good governance. The country’s ownership of the SDGs would be a prerequisite for health and development in future.

Cumulative health expenditures of federal and the provinces are estimated at Rs 384.57 billion for the fiscal year 2017-18 which is 31.75 percent higher than the actual expenditures of Rs 291.90 billion realized during the fiscal year 2016-17. A brief look into previous year’s performance reveals that total health expenditures increased both in terms of growth and as a percentage of GDP. It grew by 29.54 percent to stand at Rs 291.90 billion during the fiscal year 2016-17 against Rs 225.87 billion in 2015-16. Encouragingly, health expenditures surpassed the budget allocation of Rs 273.34 billion set for 2016-17.

While in terms of GDP, health expenditure increased to 0.91 percent during the fiscal year 2016-17 from 0.77 recorded in 2015-16. During the months of Jul-February, 2017-18 health expenditures consumed 43.5 percent of budget allocation to reach Rs 167.16 billion against the expenditure of Rs 121.57 billion in the comparable period of fiscal year 2016-17. In terms of growth, it increased by 37.51 percent. Viewed from GDP, it increased to 0.49 percent during July-February, 2017-18 from 0.38 percent recorded.

Prime Minister’s Health Programme is a social protection initiative by providing financial protection cover to all people in phases and the data of the Benazir Income Support Progamme will be used. Under this programme provision of free of cost health insurance to 3.2 million families (in Punjab, Balochistan and FATA in its two phases) living below poverty line of US$2 per day to access cashless healthcare services package of 0.3 million rupees per family per year available in both public and

private sector through a health card issued by a highly transparent mechanism. Thousand of poor patients have been benefited from the treatment facilities including deliveries, cardiac surgeries, cancer and other major diseases in the best private and government hospitals in their districts, without spending a single rupee.

As of 31st January 2018 more than 1,655,657 families have been enrolled in Prime Minister’s National Health Programme and more than 56,000 families have been treated for various illnesses from 125 empanelled hospitals across Pakistan. There is also an option of inter-district portability in the programme which enables the enrolled beneficiaries and families to access quality indoor hospital services from any empanelled hospital, both in public and private sector.

In Pakistan, stunting, wasting and deficiency micronutrients are endemic issue due to dietary deficiencies, poor maternal and child health and nutrition, and high burden of morbidity. National Nutrition Programme (NNP) 2017-18, the largest survey has been initiated by Nutrition Wing at the federal level. It includes 120,000 households and district-specific data. It also includes Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) indicators, adolescent and childhood obesity and the process is being monitored and supervised through national steering and national technical committees for National Nutrition Survey (NNS.

Some of the key achievements of the programme are as follows: Development of national guidelines targeting different components of malnutrition, development of strategies for fortification, maintaining capacity building of provincial health departments on IYCF, revised Community Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) guidelines, nutrition in emergencies, Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) on breastfeeding, coordination with provinces and other relevant stakeholders for wheat flour fortification and universal salt iodization through National Food Agency (NFA and Provincial Fortification Alliances (PFAs), and establishment of infant feeding committees in provinces parallel to Individual and Family Business (IFB) for oversight.

KARACHI:Mohammad Waqas Usman Hingoro, an award-winning Pakistani scientist who hails from Karachi’s Lyari area, has successfully discovered the cancer-killing mechanism that is applicable to the treatment of a wide-range of cancer types.

Making a major breakthrough in the field of cancer biology, Hingoro, along with a team of international cancer biologists, has unleashed the ability of ‘Extracellular Vesicles (EVs)’, the red blood cells’ component, which may carry drug delivery nanoparticles (NPs) into the affected human body parts as well as the whole organism.

According to his PhD work defended in the City University of Hong Kong, these extracellular vesicles are endogenous carriers with a potent capacity to successfully carry different types of drugs, which can be in the form of RNA, protein or the DNA and can be effectively used to target a variety of cancers.

Titled as “Efficient RNA drug delivery using red blood cell extracellular vesicles,” Hingoro’s breakthrough research has recently been published in the latest edition of the world’s leading science journal known as the ‘Nature Communication.’

Born and raised in Lyari, Usman Hingoro earned his Bachelor’s in Clinical Laboratory in 2010 from the Z.A. School of Medical Technology in Karachi. After his graduation, he joined the Aga Khan University Hospital and advanced his research work under the supervision of Dr. Javed Yakoob and successfully published a number of his research papers in internationally-reputed scientific journals.

In 2013, he received the Chinese Government Scholarship (CSC) for a Master’s programme and then selected as a Fulbright PhD candidate by the City University of Hong Kong (CityU), where Hingoro carried out his groundbreaking study under the supervision of Dr Minh TN Le. His research work can be studied online at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04791-8.

In recognition of his research contributions, the ‘Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area Biomedical Sciences Forum’ has recently awarded him the best prize at the International Symposium of Graduate Students, which was held in June 16, 2018. He was chosen out of 150+ students from across the world.

Karachi:Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) has demanded transfer of Karachi police chief Additional Inspector General of Sindh Police Mushtaq Mahar, claiming that free, fair and transparent elections in presence of AIGP Mahar are not possible.

As per details, PTI leader Haleem Adil Sheikh on Saturday submitted an application with the Provincial Election Commissioner demanding transfer of the city police chief.

Later, talking to media he alleged that it is widely known that Karachi Police Chief Mushtaq Mahar is a facilitator and trusted person of the PPP and he can directly influence the general elections in the megacity in favor of that party, as all DIGs, SSPs, DSPs and 116 SHOs are his subordinates. He said important leaders of the PPP including its former home minister also trusted only him.

Haleem Adil Sheikh said that after the approval of the chief election commissioner IGP Sindh and all officers of districts have already been transferred, but the transfer of Mushtaq Mahar is still pending which is a big question mark.

Alleging Mahar a controversial officer regarding the general elections, he said we have no personal enmity to him, but when there were differences between the former IGP A D Khowaja and the provincial government of Sindh, Mushtaq Mahar, Karachi Police Chief, remained the blue eyed boy of the PPP for three years. He said our party thinks that in the presence of Mahar, free and fair elections are not possible, as he may play a role for the win of the PPP candidates.

He requested the election commission of Pakistan that for the sake of holding free and fair polls it may order to get this police officer transferred immediately and some honest police officer with a good reputation should be posted as the Karachi police chief.

Karachi:Peshawar’s Shinwari Football Club overpowered Karachi’s Khyber Muslim while Lahore’s ICAW defeated Quetta’s Sherof Football Club in the semifinals of Leisure Leagues National Seven-a-side Football Championship here at Baloch Mujahid Stadium Friday night.

ICAW’s Umer Jawaid scored the decisive goal of the match against Sherof FC to propel his team into the climax of the tournament with a 1-0 victory after a tough battle.

Meanwhile, Shinwari FC had to work hard to beat local team Khyber Muslim in the other semifinal encounter. The regulation time ended in a 1-1 draw with Mohammad Imtiaz scoring for Karachi team while Mohammad Salman scoring for the Peshawar’s side.

However, Shinwari FC emerged victorious by 3-2 score-line in penalty-kicks and subsequently qualified for the summit clash.

All the eight teams, which qualified for the national championship, were champions of their respective cities in Leisure Leagues Intra-City events.

Earlier in group stage, Shaheed Football Club of Qila Saif Ullah; Red Devils from Islamabad; Shaikhi Seven FC from Mardan; FC Thunderbolt from Hyderabad were eliminated from the tournament.

The eight teams were equally divided into two groups – Group ‘A’ and Group ‘B’. Group ‘A’ consisted of teams from Karachi, Quetta, Hyderabad and Mardan. Meanwhile, Group ‘B’ consisted of teams from Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad and Qila Saifullah. Each team played three matches in the group stage.

Earlier, Quetta’s Sharof FC topped Group ‘A’ chart with a couple of victories and a draw, accumulating five points. Karachi’s Khyber Muslim drew two of its matches and won one to finish second with four points. Hyderabad team finished third with three points while Mardan team failed to earn a single point.

In Group ‘B’, Peshawar’s Shinwari FC topped the group’s points table with five points – two wins and a draw. Lahore’s ICAW finished second with four points winning one of its matches while drawing the rest. Islamabad team finished third with three points while the team from Qila Saifullah finished at bottom-rock fourth place without securing any point. Now both Group ‘B’ teams have qualified for the final.

The players are putting their best in the tournament as the event provides chance to the winners of this ongoing championship to secure a place in Leisure Leagues World Cup, which is scheduled to be held in Portugal’s coastal and hilly capital city Lisbon this year from October 5.

KARACHI:Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has criticized the caretaker government’s move to increase PoL prices and asked it to desist from any such decision.

In a statement, the PPP chairman expressed concern over the reports that the caretaker government was initiating attempts to hike the PoL prices and advised it to concentrate on ensuring free and fair elections instead of putting more economic burden on the masses. Bilawal asked the caretaker government to immediately halt the moves aimed at increasing the petrol prices.