ISLAMABAD: Vice Chancellor Air University AVM (r) Faaiz Amir has said that the Belt and Road Initiative brought lots of opportunities and connectivity in the fields of healthcare and life sciences.
He was addressing to the inaugural session of the two-day international conference LIFECON-2018, organised by Fazaia Medical College, Air University.
Chief Guest Lt Gen Zahid Hameed HI (M), surgeon general of Pakistan, former federal minister, co-chair, WHO High Level Commission on NCDs Dr Sania Nishtar, a Chinese delegation led by Prof Dr Airong Qian and other prominent healthcare experts from both China and Pakistan were also present at the occasion.
Vice Chancellor AVM (r) Faaiz Amir, in his speech, proposed to formulate a China-Pakistan Health Corridor along CPEC for both the nations to benefit.
He emphasised that the proposed corridor would boost an effective platform to strengthen the bilateral cooperation in various fields.
In this regard, he urged the need to launch various joint ventures to focus on the healthcare market.
“We need to harness bioengineering, information sciences, data analytics, and system engineering in order to resolve health care challenges,” he said.
The Vice Chancellor also acknowledged that China had the world’s largest mobile healthcare app operators.
“In Health China 2030 Plan, the Chinese government has placed healthcare as one of the top strategic priorities,” he added.
Dr Sania said that healthcare is not just limited to doctors, nurses and paramedical but its domains extend way beyond.
She stressed that the health challenges being faced today can be overcome by research and collaborations.
“We need to focus on universal health system success examples likes that in China, which can easily be adopted in our setup,” she said.
Dr Sania stressed that it is the responsibility of academic institutions to develop a human resource to overcome the challenges of the health field.
On the occasion, Chinese scholars from the Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an also presented their research studies.
The chief guest of the conference and surgeon general of Pakistan, Lt Gen Zahid HI (M) appreciated the efforts of the organisers for putting together such a conference.
He hoped that the LIFECON-2018 conference would provide a unique and excellent platform to witness the overlapping domains of health with other sciences by its rich context and content.
He also distributed souvenirs among the speakers.