Govt successfully introduces health sector initiatives, reforms

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Health Saira Afzal Tarar on Friday said the government had successfully introduced unprecedented health sector initiatives and reforms in the last four and a half years.

“Federal government in the last four and a half years achieved major health sector reforms with no precedent in the last seventy years,” she said talking to media in Davos while attending World Economic Forum, says a fax message received here from Davos.

She said immunization program for children and mothers in Pakistan was on upward trajectory and Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization had presented Pakistan as a model country for undertaking sweeping reforms to improve the efficiency and coverage of immunization program.

She highlighted the successful implementation of The Fund-Single Streamline Funding Round of 10 grants worth US Dollars 30.2 million. She said the country secured 52 million US Dollars to implement the Malaria interventions in 48 endemic districts of Pakistan under New Funding Model of The Global Fund.

She said Pakistan had launched its largest ever health program for the poor and marginalized under the Prime Minister’s National Health Program which was a model for others to emulate and was providing best quality health services to 3.1 million families across Pakistan and is in the process of covering the entire population living below the poverty line.

The country despite immense challenges has had its lowest ever cases last year and is close stopping poliovirus transmission.

She informed the forum that tremendous progress had been achieved towards eradicating polio which was acknowledged by highest monitoring bodies like Independent Monitoring Board and Technical Advisory Group.

She said though health was a devolved subject under the 18th constitutional amendment, the federal government took major initiatives to mobilize resources, regulate the health sector and coordinate with the provinces to achieve shared goals and standardized services.

She said the National Health Vision in line with Sustainable Development Goals was a major landmark that provided strategic direction to all stakeholders including provincial governments.