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| Pakistan mobilises resources for major health initiatives |
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Saturday, May 30, 2009
Shahina Maqbool
Islamabad
Pakistan has obtained the support of international donors and alliances to strengthen its fight against Tuberculosis as well as infant and maternal mortality.
The international donors and alliances will also assist in strengthening immunisation activities across the country.
The Department for International Development of the British government will release 45 million pounds over the next three years to enable Pakistan to achieve a decline in its alarmingly high infant and maternal mortality rates.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) will provide grants of $27 million and $120 million respectively, to support Pakistan’s fight against TB and to help strengthen immunisation activities in Pakistan. The GAVI support will go up to $56 million in the next few years.
Pakistan achieved support for its health initiatives during the recently concluded visit of the Minister for Health Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani to Geneva, where he not only addressed the 62nd Session of the World Health Assembly, the Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting, and a Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement Health Ministers, but also held fruitful meetings with the heads of various donor agencies and alliances.
Sharing details of the meetings at a press conference here on Friday, Jakhrani said, health ministers attending the WHA session called upon the world community to provide sustained assistance and technical support to Pakistan at a time when it has competing development and security requirements, and made a special appeal to international donors to cater the immediate needs of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Pakistan.
‘Impact of the economic and financial crisis on global health’ was the theme of the 62nd session of WHA. Its main agenda items included Implementation of International Health Regulations 2005, Blindness and Visual impairment, Primary Health Care, Social Determinants of Health, Health — related Millennium Development Goals, Climate Change and Health, Intellectual Property, Polio Eradication, HIV/AIDs, Health System Strengthening, Maternal and Newborn Child Health (MNCH), Health Technologies and Multilingualism.
Jakhrani highlighted the challenges being faced by the health cluster in Pakistan and expressed his concern that such challenges are compounded by current financial and economic crisis. He informed that a new comprehensive National Health Policy that is being finalised. He also touched upon the progress being achieved by the country’s health programmes.
The health minister also called on Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General WHO, in Geneva to the situations of IDPs. Dr. Chan assured all-out support to Pakistan to meet its health challenges.
During the course of WHA, the Pakistani delegation also had sideline meetings with WHO’s Health Action in Crisis Department, European Commission, UNAIDs and the Global Health Workforce Alliance. During a meeting with UNAIDs, a task force was formed under the leadership of Pakistan with the mandate to engage partner countries in dialogue and report back on progress. The German-funded National Blood Transfusion Service project in Pakistan also came under discussion and Pakistan assured all the assistance required in the area of safe blood transfusion.
Preceded by the WHA session, the ministerial meeting of the Commonwealth countries was also held, based on the theme ‘Climate change and health.’ Here, Jakhrani expressed his concern that unless increased resources were made available to secure and sustain health and overall social sector gains, the Millennium Development Goals would not be achieved and the progress made over the last decade could be lost.
The meeting noted the increasing morbidity and mortality related to Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), and agreed to continue to engage their heads of state on this issue, Jakhrani briefed the media.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
