RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Health experts on Thursday said that Pakistan’s five percent population or 9 to 10 million people are suffering from brain attack.

Professor Shaukat Ali Khan, former president Pakistan Society of Neurology said at a press conference on the World Brain Day 2017 that every year thousands of human beings fall victims of stroke or brain attack and their lives could be saved with better and authentic treatment.

Professor Muhammad Wasay, president Neurology Awareness and Research Foundation (NARF) and Pakistan Stroke Society, Professor Khalid Sher, head of Neurology at Jinnah Hospital, Dr Ahmed Salman Ghauri, president Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) Sindh, Dr Syed Tabassum Jafery, president Al-Khidmat Foundation Sindh, Dr Memoona Siddiqui, vice president Pakistan Stroke Society and others also spoke.

World Brain Day is an initiative and product of World Federation of Neurology that is observed annually to create awareness, prevent and treat the cerebral diseases alongside research on it. This event is observed in 119 countries including Pakistan every year.

This year’s main theme of World Brain Day is “Stroke” and the theme of the campaign is “Stroke is a brain attack: Prevent it - treat it”.

During the briefing, experts said that Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world with 200 million individuals where ratio of non-communicable diseases is 41 percent.

They said people in Pakistan held misperception for long that the stroke was incurable disease and patient would continue to suffer from the disease throughout his life. They said that even today people look for pigeons as they believe that pigeon blood is the only cure.

Health experts categorically said that prevention and treatment of stroke is possible and any other method employed as part of treatment is not the right way to deal with such patients.

Experts said that anyone can suffer from “brain attack” as one in six people may suffer a stroke anywhere and anytime without gender discrimination, and only prevention steps could be taken to avoid the brain attack. Figures show that women are more prone to the diseases than men.

According to some research reports and analysis, they said, among the patients of stroke, 63% suffer different physical complications and around 89% are compelled completely or partially to depend on others. They said treatment is possible as around 50 percent people suffer from stroke due to blood pressure and smoking. If these two reasons are controlled than disease will be curtailed by 50 percent.

Only keeping blood pressure below 140/90 and avoiding smoking could help reduce the number of patients by 50 percent but unfortunately there is a lack of awareness among masses and nothing is being done at the government level that is why the number of stroke patients is increasing everyday, they lamented.

They said that stroke units play vital role in minimizing the mortality and morbidity rate but unfortunately they are almost nonexistent in the country. Life Saving Clot Buster are available to only 0.01% of patients, they said.

The medicine which is given to the patient within 4-6 hours of the attack is not registered in Pakistan with Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan. Besides, due to lack of required number of neurologists the patients are not timely diagnosed.

Government and the private organizations active in health sector must take steps to create awareness including establishment of stroke units in hospitals so that the dream of healthy nation could be translated into reality, the experts urged.