LAHORE - Minister for Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department (P&SHD) Kh Imran Nazir chaired a meeting to review chickenpox situation in the province on Saturday.

Secretary P&SH Ali Jan Khan attended the meeting also participated by CEOs of District Health Authorities through

video link.

The meeting decided establishing counters and converting dengue wards into Chickenpox wards at all the hospitals in affected districts. Moreover, WHO guidelines would also be displayed at prominent places in the wards.

Kh Imran Nazir directed arranging awareness sessions for general practitioners. He directed displaying banners at prominent places in affected districts for public awareness. He said that a mechanism would be evolved to collect data of Chickenpox cases from the private hospitals/health facilities. He directed the CEOs Health to ensure strict compliance on the instruction/SOPs to control the spread of chickenpox.

Separately, Minister for Specialized Healthcare and Medical Education Kh Salman Rafiq chaired a meeting to review Hepatitis Prevention and Treatment Program (HPTP), an integral part of Hepatitis Prevention and Treatment Clinic (HPTC) at PKLI Secretariat on Saturday. President PKLI Prof Saeed Akhter and other relevant officers were also present.

Prof Saeed Akhter said that international bodies like CDC (Center of Disease Control) in Atlanta, Georgia, World Bank and Harvard Medical College would work with PKLI to eliminate hepatitis from Pakistan.

He said that prevention of hepatitis was priority of PKLI. In this regard, PKLI-HPTC was now providing free of cost vaccination and treatment to patients.