RECORDER REPORT

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is going to be the first province in Pakistan to develop a permanent ‘multi-sector outbreak plan’ providing for tickling any and every health emergency and the outbreak of any epidemic disease in any part of the province.

The Plan brings together all sector partners, Provincial government departments and organizations with the Health Department providing for constant and instant vertical and horizontal contacts and coordination. The Plan is being finalized in a two-day workshop organized with the help and guidance of Public Health England opened Tuesday in Islamabad. Representatives of almost all Provincial government departments and organizations as well as national and international organizations related to public health like National Institute of Health (NIH) and World Health Organization (WHO) are participating.

The objectives of the workshop was to gain a common understanding of the rational for and utility of the plan, to present an overview of the present Integrated Diseases Surveillance Reporting (IDSR) outbreak response process, to identify gaps in the present system of outbreak response.