The Punjab government has released a Rs 150 million grant for the establishment of three drug testing laboratories in Multan, Rawalpindi and Lahore, and also for two food testing laboratories in Faisalabad and Rawalpindi.
Punjab Finance Minister Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman disclosed this revelation in a meeting with a delegation of doctors, chemists and party workers at his residence in Lahore on Saturday.
Shuja said that the Punjab government would ensure the supply of standardized medicine to its citizens and moreover, implement relevant laws, citing improper food storage and violation of hygienic principles as the reasons behind a number of dangerous diseases.
He said individuals risking the lives of innocent people would not be spared, and the government was committed to providing quality food and medicines to the masses.
The minister asked the doctors to launch a comprehensive campaign against communicable and non-communicable diseases especially in rural areas. “The best approach to make people and the future generation healthy is to save children and mothers from preventable diseases. The eradication of smallpox from the country about 40 years ago proved that a vaccine can help in eradication of diseases,” he said.
Shuja said that provincial government’s major focus was on protecting the health of people through strengthening primary healthcare and disease preventive programmes.
