KARACHI: Speakers at the 26th Pakistan Paediatric Association (PPA) Scientific Conference on Friday said that Pakistan was the only country in the world where the rate of childbirth and that of neonatal mortality was the highest.

Terrible diseases among children had increased abnormally due to heavy rains and flash floods in Sindh, they said at the moot inaugurated by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.

The event will continue on Saturday and Sunday as well. Over 3,000 experts participate in the conference, including those from America, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Malaysia.

Organising committee chairman Professor Syed Jamal Raza, chief coordinator Dr Waseem Jamalvi, Dr Muhammad Khalid Shafi, Dr Jalal Akbar and Prof Ghafar Billu and others spoke on the occasion.

Murad inaugurates 26th paediatric association’s conference

Dr Jamalvi said recommendations were being prepared regarding health of children and reducing the death rate. They would be sent to the Sindh government at the end of the three-day conference, he said.

More than 100 pre-conference workshops, nine on-site pre-conference workshops and 24 scientific symposiums will also be organised in the PPA conference. More than 70 research papers and 50 posters will also be presented by young researchers in the conference.

Prof Jamal Raza said that guidelines had been introduced for the first time to provide the required amount of oxygen to newborns. “The guidelines were developed in collaboration with Unicef and the Health Service Academy. In the light of the guidelines, oxygen will be administered to newborns,” he added.

He said the guidelines should also be communicated to paediatricians, policy makers, hospital managements and paramedical staff.

He also said the birth rate in Pakistan was 3.2 per annum, which was very high. He said the vaccination rate in Pakistan was 60 per cent due to which children suffered from various diseases at an early age. He said that the death rate among newborn babies in Sindh was 42 out of 1,000.

‘Healthy children, healthy future’

In his opening address, the chief minister said that without healthy children, a nation could not have a healthy future. “We have been addressing all these issues with effective polio campaigns, vaccination drives like typhoid and measles-rubella and others with the aim to reduce infant and neonatal mortality,” he added.

Mr Shah said the paediatric association had been organising a major scientific conference to address various health issues in paediatric medicine. He hoped that they would come up with some solutions and actions for the current health situation after the devastating flood.

The CM was appreciative of the fact that the association had in the past been supporting all the health-related activities of his government, especially the child health initiatives, immunisation and nutrition programmes, and polio campaigns.

He added that the PPA had also played a supportive role in holding medical camps in various parts of the province during the recent flood disaster.

Mr Shah said Pakistan had a population of over 80 million children and only 21 per cent live in urban areas. “The rest of the children who live in rural areas are usually deprived of various resources such as clean water and food, education and health services,” he deplored.

He said the last few years had been very challenging with all the financial constraints and challenges. “This has been made worse by the pandemic of Covid-19, taking its toll, and most recently due to unprecedented natural disasters of rains and floods,” he said and added the flood had inundated nearly a third of Pakistan, affected nearly 33m people, including 16m children.

He said that 650,000 pregnancies were affected with a death toll of over 1,500, including 552 children. He added that the estimated economic cost of the calamity to the country was $30 billion.

The CM said that despite all those issues, health had been a major priority of the Sindh government. “We have increased our health budget over the years and making improvements with major investments in the health sector to improve various health indicators of Sindh,” he said and added that as far as child health was concerned, the government understood that it was facing some major challenges.

Mr Shah said the provincial government had been fighting a war against polio for many years. “We are faced with the challenge of malnutrition, low immunisation coverage and rampant infectious diseases like pneumonia, diarrhoea, dengue, malaria, tuberculosis, and others,” he said and added: “Most of all, we are faced with high infant mortality, and one of the highest newborn mortality in the world”.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2022