KARACHI: A clarion call was made to make medical treatments and related investigations affordable in the greater interest of the public at the inaugural session of the annual conference of pathologists here on Thursday.
The call came at the 40th annual conference of the Pakistan Association of Pathologists (PAP) which commenced at SIUT (Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation).
The three-day conference is being attended by over seventy practising pathologists from Pakistan and foreign countries. Chairman of the conference organizing committee, Professor Mirza Naqi Zafar welcomed the guests and highlighted the theme of the conference, ‘70 years of Pathology in Pakistan’. The association was started in 1976 with 18 pathologists and today the number stands beyond twenty thousand in the country.
Professor Adib Rizvi who is a founding director of the institute gave the keynote address dedicated to the late professor Javed Kazi. He emphasized on the prevailing disparity that is experienced in every segment of the developing world. Discussing his own philosophy that ‘health is a birthright of every individual’, he declared that the root cause of the prevailing disparity is massive economic exploitation.
Professor Rizvi pointed out that the disparity of resources has increased as 80 per cent of the global population comprising the developing world is suffering because all the resources are owned by a small group of 20 per cent from the developed world. He called upon the pathologists’ community to carry out a crusade in their medical research based on a solid foundation in order to meet the challenges of the future and extend the coverage of meaningful medical care.
He also gave a detailed presentation on the activities of SIUT as an institution of special medical care for last 45 years.
Albert Einstien College of Medicine New York (EinsteinMed) Molecular Pathology Professor, Dr Rizwan Naeem, gave a lecture on his paper and spoke on molecular and genetic screening especially for cancer patients.
The working sessions and workshops of the conference will discuss various branches of pathology including microbiology, immunology, histopathology, infectious diseases, transplantation, haematology and genetics.
