Murad emphasises children's health for better tomorrow

KARACHI: Murad Ali Shah, the chief minister of Sindh, stated that without healthy children, a nation could not have a healthy future. "We have been addressing these challenges with effective polio campaigns, vaccination efforts for Typhoid and Measles-Rubella, and others to reduce Infant and Neonatal Mortality."

He stated this at the Pakistan Pediatric Association (PPA) Scientific Conference.

President-elect PPA Prof. Jamal Raza, Chairman of the Organizing Committee Prof. Khursheed Abbassi, Co-Chair of the Organizing Committee Prof. Jalal Akbar, Secretary of the Organizing Committee Prof. Habibullah Babar, Dr Khalid Shafi, and Dr Waseem Jamalvi spoke during the event.

Murad Ali Shah appreciated the Pakistan Pediatric Association's historical support for his government's health-related operations, including child health initiatives, immunisation & nutrition programs, and polio campaigns. During the recent flood crisis, he continued, the PPA also played a helpful role in establishing medical camps in various areas of the province.

According to Murad Ali Shah, Pakistan has over 80 million children, but just 21 per cent live in metropolitan areas. "The remaining children in rural areas are typically deprived of resources like clean water and food, education, and health care," he lamented.

Moreover, Murad Ali Shah elaborated that the last three years have been extremely difficult due to financial constraints and obstacles. "This has been made worse by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and most recently by the unprecedented natural disasters of rains and floods," he said, adding that the flood has inundated nearly a third of Pakistan, affected nearly 33 million people, including 16 million children, displaced 7.6 million, destroyed 3.6 million acres of crops, killed more than 750,000 livestock, damaged 24000 schools, destroyed thousands of kilometres of roads and bridges, and impacted millions of people.

Murad Shah indicated that 650 thousand pregnancies were affected, and over 1500 people died, including 552 children. The estimated economic loss to the country, he claimed, was $30 billion. "Over the years, we have increased our health budget and made big expenditures in the health sector to enhance various health indicators in Sindh," he said, adding that in terms of child health, we recognise that we face significant problems.

Murad Ali Shah stated that his administration had waged war against polio for several decades. "We face the problem of starvation, low immunisation coverage, and prevalent infectious diseases such as Pneumonia, Diarrhea, Dengue, Malaria, and tuberculosis," he stated, adding, "most importantly, we face high infant mortality and one of the highest neonatal mortality rates in the world."

Murad Ali Shah observed that a nation could not have a bright future without healthy children. "We have been addressing all of these issues with effective polio campaigns, vaccination drives such as Typhoid and Measles-Rubella, and others," he said, adding, "we have now established a separate institute, 'Sindh Institute of Child Health & Neonatology,' with the vision of addressing the critical area of newborn care and speciality-oriented childhood diseases to reduce Infant and Neonatal Mortality. 

Murad Ali Shah announced that the first such centre has opened in Korangi at Sindh Government Hospital Korangi-5. He expressed his intention to expand the network to the districts of Sukkur, Larkana, Kamber- Shahdadkot, Shikarpur, and eventually the entire province of Sindh.

Murad Ali Shah hoped that a road plan for reducing neonatal, baby, and child mortality would be presented after the meeting attended by the brightest brains in paediatrics.