PESHAWAR, Sept. 23 (APP): A team of the World Health Organization (WHO), National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad and Department of Health Khyber Pakhtunkhwa visited Khyber Medical University (KMU) and finalised matters related to establishment of a state of the art Public Health Reference Lab (PHRL) at KMU-IBMS.
According to a press release issued here on Friday, Dr. Uzma Aamir, Virologist of NIH Islamabad, Dr. Pervez Kamal Director General Health KP, Dr. Shaheen Afridi Deputy Director Public Health DG Health Office KP, and Dr. Irfan Ali Shah Assistant Director Public Health DG Health Office KP visited the KMU.
The team discussed in detail the draft points of the proposed MoU with KMU management.
The team was received by Prof. Dr. Muhammad Hafizullah Vice Chancellor KMU and meeting was attended by Prof. Dr. Jawad Ahmad Director IBMS, Dr. Zia Ul-Haq Director ORIC and Dr. Yasir Yousafzai of IBMS.
The main purpose of the visit was to proceed further with the development of necessary structural modification and logistic plans to develop the PHRL.
The establishment of PHRL at the University will be a unique experiment of its kind in the whole region.
The core functions of the PHRL will be to advise the Department of Health KP on health related matters especially diagnosis and prevention of diseases and investigation of epidemics and to act as reference center for the diagnosis and surveillance of disease especially the infectious disease.
In the meeting it was agreed that in the initial plan, two floors in Institute of Basic Medical Sciences (IBMS) building will be allocated for PHRL which will initially be focusing on lab confirmation for notifiable communicable diseases; the ambit of which will be further expanded to non-communicable diseases in future.
Dr. Zia Ul-Haq of KMU, Dr. Shaheen Afridi Department of Health KP and Dr. Uzma Aamir, NIH Islamabad were named as focal persons from their respective organizations.
