LAHORE - Punjab Secretary Health Dr Ijaz Munir on Thursday said that the government has started working on multi-sectoral strategy for food safety and nutrition. He said that progress is being made towards achieving the targets of MDGs the problem of health of mother & child and overcoming their mortality rate.
While addressing a seminar on the topic of food safety and nutrition under the aegis of Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) he said that the sector has been badly neglected in the past.
President PMA Lahore Dr Tanvir Anwar, General Secretary Dr Izhaar Chaudhry, Vice Chancellor University of Veterinary Sciences Dr Talat Pasha, Prof Yaqoob Qazi besides male and female doctors associated with medical sector and Director General Health Dr Zahid Pervaiz were also present on the occasion.
President PMA Dr. Tanvir Ahmed informed that a 3-day annual international conference of PMA would be held in Lahore this November in which Pakistani doctors from all over the world would participate and new doctors would get an opportunity of learning from senior teachers. Child specialist Dr Yaqoob Qazi said that population of the country was three crore at the time of creation of Pakistan while now Pakistan has become the sixth largest country of the world with regard to population and the major portion of the population comprises youth. He said that the majority of women and children are facing shortage of food, iodine and iron because of imbalanced diet and increasing population. He said that other countries have overcome this problem successfully. He said that milk is essential ingredient of the food of the children.
 He said that government should adopt micro nutrition management policy. Other speakers also addressed the seminar and presented their proposals. Secretary Health said that government has allocated more resources in new financial year for primary health and checking of diseases. He said that food safety is of basic importance in achieving the target of MDGs.  He expressed the hope that the situation will considerably improve in the coming days due to effective planning and steps of the government.