The Mother & Child Health Week campaign will begin today (Monday) in the province with the aim to minimise the mortality rate of pregnant women and infants.
“The campaign will continue till April 30 and all officials of the Health Department and lady health workers (LHWs) will fully participate in the drive,” provincial Health Secretary Hashim Raza Zaidi said at a press conference on Sunday.
The National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Health Care Sindh is coordinating the programme in collaboration with UNICEF.
Zaidi said that the main focus of the programme would be diarrhoea cases among children as the disease mainly occurs in summer season.
He said that the Mother & Child Health Week was first piloted in Tando Allayar district in April 2008 and produced very encouraging results.
The programme was then spread to 11 districts of the province. The health secretary said that during the week, lady health workers (LHWs) have been assigned the task to de-worm children from the age of 2 to 5 years by giving them a Mebendazole tablet.
“They will vaccinate children aged up to 2 years and also pregnant women,” he added.
LHWs will also conduct health education sessions with different groups of women on antenatal health care, breast feed, birth spacing, personal hygiene and nutrition to provide maximum health awareness to the community at the grassroots level.
“All these activities are expected to reduce infant mortality rate from 85 to 55 per 1,000 cases and decline maternal mortality rate from 400 to 180 per 100,000 births,” he maintained.
He said during the campaign launched during the year 2008 and 2010, at least 0.31 million children aged between 2 to 5 years were de-wormed, 0.54 million children were vaccinated and 0.17 million pregnant women were vaccinated.
Representatives of the National Health Programme and UNICEF, Sindh health director general and EDO Health Karachi were also present on the occasion.
