Role of public health professionals lauded

Islamabad

Public health professionals in Pakistan are playing a commendable role in disease surveillance and in responding to outbreaks across the country, Minister of State for Health Saira Afzal Tarar stated while presiding over a certificate award ceremony to recognize participants of the 11th Annual Disease Surveillance and Outbreak Response course.

The training is a step to build the capacity of public health professionals in carrying out effective disease surveillance and response to disease outbreaks. During recent years, Pakistan has faced numerous challenges associated with massive outbreaks of Chikungunya in 2016 and 2017, and measles in 2017.

 “We are now engaged in a major fight against polio and the whole world is expecting from us. All these challenges have necessitated the need to enhance the capacity of disease surveillance, outbreak detection and response,” Saira stated.

Saira termed the establishment of Federal, Provincial and Regional Diseases Surveillance and Outbreak Response Units as a major step. “These units not only provide practical training to public health doctors in disease outbreak response but also act as Emergency Operation Centres. Now it’s the responsibility of us all at federal and provincial health departments to support this initiative and provide an enabling environment for these units to function in our fight against diseases. These units have responded to 120 outbreaks in the first seven months of 2017 and thousands of children have been protected as a result of vaccination,” Saira added.

Saira mentioned that recent epidemics across Pakistan have highlighted critical gaps in the post-devolution surveillance and response arrangements, which are being seriously looked into. Additionally, the country is also striving to quickly beef up its IHR implementation arrangements so as to detect, respond, identify and report public health events of national and international concern.

The Ministry of Health is revitalizing its efforts to put in place an Integrated Disease Surveillance & Response System along with Public Health Laboratories Network in coordination with the relevant provincial health departments. The establishment of a new ‘Division of Field Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance’ at NIH is the first step in this direction.