Islamabad-Pakistan is facing a double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases due to epidemiological transition while rapid response teams have been formulated to tackle the outbreak epidemics, an official said on Friday.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) under the control of Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHSR) is involved in detection, prevention and response to public health events of national/international concern and providing technical/logistic support to the provinces for over four decades.
On the communicable disease front, various geographical areas of Pakistan continue to encounter outbreaks resulting in a significant burden on the national healthcare delivery system in terms of morbidity as well as mortality.
The statement issued by NIH said that the Field Epidemiology and Diseases Surveillance Division (FEDSD), NIH is vigilant to infectious diseases distribution/trends, and accordingly issues alerts, guidelines, and advisories as and when required in addition to compiling the data of epidemic-prone diseases from all over the country.
In collaboration with Public Health England, a real-time Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response is being designed; shortly it will be piloted in selected districts of all the provinces.
Also, FEDSD is providing training to Federal and Provincial health staff to act as rapid response teams to tackle the outbreaks and epidemics.
The statement said that One Health hub is being opertionalise at NIH and Zoonotic /Entomology reference lab capacities are being enhanced to detect, prevent and response other vector-borne/zoonotic diseases in collaboration with Animal Health and environment professionals.
The public health laboratories division, NIH is providing diagnostic facilities for epidemic-prone diseases and also supports to strengthen laboratory diagnosis for early detection of cases, surveillance and infection control measures in healthcare facilities.
Public Health Laboratory network is being extended to provincial headquarters for early diagnosis and management of the diseases.
NIH has established well equipped Disease Surveillance and Response Units (DSRUs) in Director General Health offices at all provinces, AJK, GB and FATA in collaboration with FELTP Pakistan.
Trained workforce along with FELTP trainees is deployed at all DSRUs to conduct surveillance/response and outbreak investigations. All DSRUs are involved in response to the prevalent diseases like Chikungunya, Dengue, and CCHF. Being IHR focal point, a comprehensive five years roadmap has been developed in consultation with provinces to strengthen the public health /animal health system of the country.