Creating awareness about celiac disease social responsibility: Shafqat

Islamabad : Federal Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood Thursday said that creating awareness about celiac diseases was their social responsibility, which would benefit more people in the country.

Addressing the participants of one-day seminar on ‘Prevention of Celiac Diseases and our Social Responsibilities,’ organised by National Council of Social Welfare at National Institute of Special Education, the minister said that he was himself facing wheat use allergy.

He said that he liked ‘tandoor roti’ from childhood, adding that after sometime, he felt pain and swelling due to which tests were conducted.

He said that a disease was diagnosed about which he heard for the first time. The minister said that he was restrained from using wheat roti (bread). He said that due to this disease a person has to go through number of tests. Due to this disease, a person could not use wheat bread or other wheat products.

He said patients suffering from this disease face a number of problems and they had no option but to bear it and the only remedy for this disease was to take preventive measures.

The minister said people get awareness and information about the disease from seminars like this.

He said awareness was very essential to prevent the onset of this disease.

Shafqat Mahmood lauded the efforts of National Council of Social Welfare for organizing the seminar on an important issue and urged experts to lead efforts to spread information about this health hazard.

In her speech, Parliamentary Secretary Wajiha Akram said such awareness programmes helped people to change their behaviour and lifestyle that fosters healthy environment.

She said the government was providing health facilities to poor segment of society.

National Council of Social Welfare Chairman,Dr Nadeem Shafiq, said that very few people had knowledge about the celiac diseases in the country.

He said that special food needed to be prepared for the people facing wheat allergy.

Earlier, prominent health experts including Dr Shahid Parvaiz Ansari, Dr Shaista Habibullah, Dr Mazher Abbas Rizvi, Dr Saim Ali Somroo and Dr Laila Khan delivered lectures and highlighted various aspects of the celiac diseases.

They said the people with wheat allergy had an abnormal immune system response to at leastone of the proteins that exist in wheat. Exposure to wheat could lead to breathing difficulties, nausea, bloated stomach and an inability to focus.