Special Assistant to Prime Minister Dr. Zafar Mirza addressed the inaugural session of the 5-day national workshop Global Burden of the Disease studies of Pakistan, held in Islamabad. The workshop was organized to start formal deliberations on the GBD studies in Pakistan. The workshop is being conducted under the guidance of Ali H. Mokdad, PhD, Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and Chief Strategy Officer for Population Health at the University of Washington. The workshop was attended by the representatives of Provincial Departments of Health, academicians, clinicians, researchers and other stakeholders. Addressing the workshop, Dr. Zafar Mirza, said, ‘Prime Minister of Pakistan is very much supportive of the efforts to elaborate the Global Burden Disease estimates in Pakistan, specially to have the actual data for the disease patterns in Pakistan to make universal health services provision to the people of the Pakistan. Dr Zafar Mirza informed that, ‘the Ministry is currently developing a National Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS) and inter-sectoral polices based on the Disease Control Priority -3 including the best global practices to make the essential services available at the five different level of the health care services to facilitate the underprivileged and provide more equitable health services. Dr Zafar Mirza emphasized that the Global Burden of Disease studies will help the policy makers to get the exact estimates of the disease burden of the country which will be adopted for the development of a comprehensive EPHS to be implemented at all levels of healthcare delivery system The SAPM emphasized the importance of the sub-national burden of the disease studies and suggested that the burden of disease data should be collected until the union council level to have an accurate decentralized picture of the disease patterns of the country and each and every administrative segment of the country including UCs, Tehsils, districts and provinces. Dr Zafar Mirza informed that MoNHSR&C initiated dialogue with Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) for facilitation and support to develop Burden of Disease Estimates for Pakistan for the year 2017 and onwards and for the development of Central Data repository in context of relevant priority areas i-e communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, RMNCAH/Nutrition and Health system that would be integrated in National dashboard. Dr Zafar Mirza emphasized the importance of institutionalization of research activity and more specifically the reasoning behind every research problem that is affecting our country and its populace. He also suggested the researcher’s publication to be utilized for improving policy making of the country, for which all the public and private stakeholders will need to be taken on board. IHME is supporting Pakistan in the development of the capacities of our own burden of the disease -data, and we look towards a long term and lasting working relationship.
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