Pakistan seeks to plug health sector shortcomings during dialogue with US

Islamabad: In order to identify the shortcomings of the health ministry and bolster collaborative work, a delegation led by Pakistani Health Minister Qadir Patel has reached the US to participate in a health dialogue.
The delegation has visited Washington at the invitation of the US and the health dialogue will start on Monday, ARY News reported. The delegation will witness the participation of the Chairman of Pakistan's National Institute of Health and Director of the Health Ministry Dr Baseer Achakzai.
Several health officials and US State Department officials will also be a part of the Health Dialogue.
A total of nine rounds of the health dialogue have been carried out virtually, as per the Health Ministry.
Several key topics that will be discussed during the dialogue will include border health security services, nutrition, maternal health and improvement in CDC and the drug regulatory authority, local media reported.
The US will provide the Pakistan Health Ministry with four modern mobile laboratories and the country will assist Islamabad with regards to technology transfer, training, upgradation, Corona polio and other viral diseases' vaccines, tools for the centre for disease control and laboratory equipment.
With the economy shrinking and rising inflation in Pakistan, around 60 essential medicines, including suicide-prevention drugs, have vanished from the market due to the spike in the cost of production, prompting psychiatrists to fear high suicide cases in the country.
Several other psychiatrists at renowned Pakistani hospitals also said that the patients with bipolar disorder were moved as the medicines of particular brands are not available in the market, according to The News International.
Another senior pharmacist Salwa Ahsan from Islamabad said the medicine Lithium Carbonate was not available throughout the country, adding that the cost of the raw materials had gone way up and companies were no more manufacturing them.
The publication also revealed that several important medicines for the treatment of TB, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, depression, cardiovascular disease and others were not available as pharmaceutical companies were not manufacturing them due to the high cost of production.
Qazi Mansoor Dilawar, the Chairman of the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association (PPMA), said that unless the prices of the medicines are increased by 30 to 40 per cent by the government or prices of medicines are deregulated, the unavailability of medicines would continue and feared that more companies could stop manufacturing several more medicines in the days to come. (ANI)