Skip to main content

WHO experts begin probe into sudden spread of HIV in Larkana

LARKANA: The team of World Health Organisation that arrived in the country on Tuesday to probe reasons behind the spread of HIV and investigate from where the virus had travelled to the area, visited the children’s treatment centre for HIV/AIDS in Chandka Medical College children’s hospital on Thursday and inquired the staff about how they handled the patients.

The team asked project manager of Sindh AIDS Control Programme who accompanied them about the facilities and the protocol for treating AIDS patients. On Friday, the team members would visit Ratodero taluka hospital to personally observe the ongoing process of blood screening for HIV, said sources.

Before the visit of the healthcare facility, the WHO team held a meeting with Sindh Minister for Health Dr Azra Pechuho and other stakeholders at Darbar Hall to review the overall situation regarding the outbreak of HIV/AIDS in Ratodero and the efforts put in so far to fight the virus.

Olive Morgan, the team leader, told that meeting that the scope of the delegation was to dig out the reasons behind the spread of the deadly disease and also see from where it had travelled to the area.

He said that WHO was ready to help patients suffering from the deadly virus. The participants in the meeting exchanged views and discussed certain proposals as to how best to handle the situation. The delegation also handed over AIDS medicines to the minister.

The minister said that since the outbreak of the virus, the health department had set up blood screening camps in and around Ratodero to test the population and opened treatment centers in hospitals. She termed the situation a ‘challenge’ and expressed optimism about overcoming it in near future.

The minister accompanied by health officials later visited blood screening centre in Ratodero taluka hospital where she told reporters that the WHO delegates were working on different diseases and they would provide the Sindh government a detailed study report on HIV/AIDS.

She said that both Global Fund and Sindh government were financially contributing towards efforts to combat the virus and “we are planning to systematically and scientifically spend the funds”. She claimed a ‘drop’ in the virus’ intensity and said that people were very afraid of the virus.

She said that so far 712 persons had been diagnosed as HIV positive at the blood screening centre at Ratodero and announced that WHO and other stakeholders would help Sindh government in establishing good treatment centers.

She said that during their stay the foreign delegates would interact with different communities, visit blood screening camps and treatment centers and compile a report with the findings and reasons which led to the virus’ spread.

Secretary for health Dr Saeed Ahmed Magnejo, Larkana commissioner Saleem Raza Khuhro, project manager of Sindh AIDS Control Programme Dr Sikandar Memon, deputy commissioner, representatives of PPHI, Expan­ded Programme of Immunisation and district health officer attended the meeting.

15 more test positive for HIV

Fifteen, 11 among them children, tested positive for HIV during ongoing blood screening test at Ratodero taluka hospital where 286 persons were screened on Thursday. Among them four were adults (one male and three females) and 11 were children (six boys and five girls), said sources.

Nine health facilities sealed

Ghulam Yaseen Vessar, deputy director of anti-quackery section of the Sindh Healthcare Commis­sion, sealed nine healthcare facilities on the outskirts of Larkana after raids.

Mr Vessar said that the health facilities were either run by quacks or their premises were found unfit for being clinics. Three clinic owners had been warned to rectify shortfalls or face action, he said. So far 189 clinics had been sealed and 61 had been issued warning, he said.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2019



from The Dawn News - Home http://bit.ly/2HLTqdF
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trump says he urged team to ‘slow’ COVID-19 testing

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he was encouraging health officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing, arguing that increased tests lead to more cases being discovered. The president has claimed falsely on several occasions that surges of COVID-19 in several states can be explained by greater numbers of diagnostic tests. At his first rally since the outbreak forced nationwide shutdowns in March, Trump told the crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma that testing was a “double-edged sword.” The United States — which has more deaths and cases than any other country — has carried out more than 25 million coronavirus tests, placing it outside the top 20 countries in the world, per capita. “Here is the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases,” Trump argued. “So I said to my people ‘slow the testing down.’ They test and they test.” It was not clear from Trump’s tone if he was playing to the crowd, who ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sir Anwer Pervez, richest Pakistani British businessman, loses £432m in pandemic

Sir Anwar Pervez OBE, the founder and chairman of Bestway Cash & Carry has lost £432 million during the coronavirus pandemic to bring him down to No 50 on the richest British people list. The list has 1,000 people and is published by the Sunday Times newspaper . Pervez was at No 42 previously.  The 2020 list of the UK’s richest shows its first fall in wealth in a decade as Britain’s wealthiest people lost tens of billions of pounds in the coronavirus pandemic, the Sunday Times reported in its Rich List 2020. The newspaper, which has produced the respected annual ranking of the country’s 1,000 wealthiest people since 1989, found the past two months had resulted in the super-rich losing £54 billion ($65 billion). More than half of the billionaires in Britain had seen drops in their worth by as much as £6b, a decrease in their collective wealth unprecedented since 2009 and the financial crisis. The Hinduja brothers, who topped last year’s list with a £22b fortune, saw among ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Despite reservations about jury, Pakistan to implement FATF reforms: envoy

WASHINGTON: Despite its reservations about the fairness of the jury which is to determine Pakistan’s performance against terror financing, the government is committed to implementing its action plan for dealing with this issue, says Islamabad’s Washington envoy Asad Majeed Khan. In a conversation with a prominent US scholar George Perkovich, recorded at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington on Monday afternoon, Ambassador Khan said the actions that Pakistan had taken so far to eliminate terror financing were “reflective of the political will”. “We feel that we have done a lot. We are also clear and determined to do more,” said the envoy while responding to a question about a meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) held in Orlando last week, which asked Pakistan to implement its own action plan for eliminating terror financing by October. Failing to do so could put Pakistan on a blacklist of violators and bring strict economic sanctions too. “But we w...
Post a Comment
Read more