PESHAWAR: The shortage of funds has become a recurring problem for Public Health Reference Laboratory (PHRL) as its 57 employees have not received salaries for the last five months, according to sources.

PHRL was established in February 2017 after a memorandum of understanding was signed among health department, Khyber Medical University (KMU) and National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, to ensure testing of modifiable diseases as per regulations of World Health Organisation.

It had been agreed upon that PHRL would receive funding for its operations from health department on regular basis in addition to technical support from WHO and NIH.

However, it continues to seek funds from health department every year and this year is no exception as its 57 employees are without salaries for the past five months. They continue to work as the laboratory is required to conduct tests for more than 40 modifiable diseases. The low-grade employees say that they don’t have money to for transportation expenses.

Finance minister says he will convene a meeting soon to resolve the issue

Sources told Dawn that the laboratory conducted more than 1.5 million tests to support Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) of health department for communicable diseases surveillance and outbreak investigation.

PHRL, having a capacity of 4,000 tests per day, has enabled health department to receive rapid results of investigations and take prompt action in case of epidemic and outbreaks. It receives samples from the entire province. With the onset of Covid-19, it started from 40 tests a day and increased its capacity to 5,000. It conducted a total of eight million PCRs within a grant of Rs350 million as opposed to its cost of Rs5.7 billion in the market.

During the past two years, the laboratory has performed 7,000 tests for typhoid, which enabled physicians to prescribe medication and safeguard patients from usage of unnecessary drugs. Of them, 91 per cent were found to be resistant to ampicillin, a commonly used medicine.

Before the establishment of PHRL, health department used to dispatch specimens to NIH and the results were received in weeks. Now results of tests are made available within 24 hours. It has microbiology, molecular biology, genomic sequencing and serology sections due to which its role in surveillance of cholera, Congo fever, dengue fever, typhoid and influenza outbreaks in the province has become crucially important.

Officials have labelled the laboratory as NIH of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They said that it saw frequent inspections by WHO and NIH for compliance of IHR regulations. Finance department had issued Rs34.06 million to it in August 2023 which had long been exhausted and its operations had become impossible.

They said that PHRL sought Rs65 million to continue to play its part for diagnosis and preparedness for disease outbreaks. Health department has been requesting government to regularise its staff because PHRL has been established under IHR to ensure testing of diseases.

Officials said that at least three highly qualified and trained persons quit the laboratory after they got permanent jobs and the rest were weighing options to have good jobs. “If we continue to lose trained people at PHRL, government will have to recruit new people. The best way is to regularise its staff and issue budget to it regularly,” they said.

Last year, seven mpox cases were detected in Pakistan of which six were diagnosed in PHRL. The affected people were promptly isolated that put brakes on spread of the infection. Likewise, testing for chikungunya, cholera, dengue haemorrhagic fever and Covid-19 were also conducted on regular basis in the laboratory. In many cases, the residents of the province would have to face travel ban but that has been avoided because PHRL is performing genome sequencing, which shows the type of viruses.

Health department has requested for grant to finance department that will get go-ahead at the cabinet’s next meeting.

Finance Minister Muzzammil Aslam, when contacted, said that he would convene a meeting next week and look into the issue. “It seems a genuine issue and we will try to address this in the coming budget,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2025