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Islamabad, April 23, 2013 (PPI-OT): In an inter ministerial meeting held here today Mir Hasan Domki, Federal Minister for Inter Provincial Coordination said that all provinces should put their efforts together to get rid of the menace of measles. He added that it was need of the hour to immediately implement the recommendations given by the Federal Ombudsman in the wake of outbreak of measles.
Health authorities of all four provinces along with GB, AJK, FATA, ICT and CDA participated. Additional Secretary IPC gave the presentation regarding investigation report of the federal ombudsman.
Outbreak of measles emanated from Sindh in October last year claiming lives of 463 children. There were also reports of some 19000 suspected cases throughout the country. It was an alarming situation which required immediate attention of the government both at Federal and Provincial levels. It pointed out obvious mal-functioning and negligence the government departments and their functionaries.
It was brought to the notice of the Wafaqi Mohtasib by both print and electronic media and national and provincial policy makers. The Wafaqi Mohtasib took cognizance of the matter and constituted a committee under the Chairmanship of Justice (Rtd) Muhammad Raza Khan, Advisor to Wafaqi Mohtasib to investigate into the matter with the following terms and reference.
To determine the cause of outbreak of measles throughout Pakistan.
To fix responsibility.
To make appropriate recommendations.
Following were the recommendation of Wafaqi Mohtasib report:-
In order to ensure effective coordination and integration of health related functions which are retained at the federal level in four different Ministries/Division after devolution, It is imperative that all these functions/services should be merged at the federal level and placed under a separate single Division namely Public Health Services Coordination Division headed by an independent Federal Secretary. Alternatively these functions may be placed under a Federal Health Services Commission headed by a full time Chairman with the status of a Federal Minister.
At the Federal level, there should be an EPI Council headed by the Prime Minister with Minister Public Health Chief Ministers and Provincial Ministers of Health as its members to review progress of the routine EPI, disease surveillance and coverage of the vaccination program on a quarterly basis.
There should also be an EPI Cell in the Prime Minister’s office to coordination vaccination activities throughout the country.
For the purposes of strengthening and support of all Public Health Programs (vertical programmers including EPI), there should be nucleus/set up headed by Secretary Public Health Services Coordination Division or Federal Health Services Commission which would coordinate with the provinces and the donor community (WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA etc) and track of MDGs relating to health.
All the representatives of the health ministries gave presentation regarding situation in their provinces/areas regarding current position of measles and a future plan.
In the light of recommendations given in the report of Wafaqi Mohtasib, it was decided that there should be a mechanism at federal level to monitor and implement such kind of recommendations. Though there were hurdles after the devolution of health ministry, yet Federal Government was keen to help provinces to overcome such problems. Meeting ended with assurance note of Federal Minister that there would be no stone unturned to eradicate measles.
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