MIRPUR (AJK)
Medical experts here on Tuesday emphasised a need for pre-marriage blood tests of both of the proposed partners to avert ever-lasting and incurable disease of Thalassaemia.
“Both male and female should go for a detailed blood test before going into the wed-lock to get ascertained the symptoms of possible emerging of the chronic disease of Thalassemia,” speakers said at a grand ceremony.
The ceremony was also addressed among others by DHQ Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Azeem Rattayal, District Health Officer Dr Asghar Ali Chaudhry, Dr Sayeeda Farukh Tasneem Shah, Secretary General Mirpur chapter of Pakistan Thalassemia Society Dr Zaffar Iqbal Chaudhry, Prof Mian Abdul Rasheed, Principal Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Medical College Mirpur and others.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony after donating wheel chairs, medicines and the financial relief for the centre located in Mirpur DHQ Hospital, Qazi Abdul Aziz Chishti, a Kashmiri expatriate, said that his organisation inked an integrated phased programme to donate to the AJK-based main Thalassemia Centre in Mirpur for the recovery of the patients, mostly children, facing a permanent treatment through frequent transfusion of blood in efforts  to maintain their normal position.
Dr Zaffar Iqbal apprised the audience that Rs4,500 is the cost of per-month treatment of a child patient. He called upon philanthropists to contribute their due share by meeting the expenditures of the medical treatment of maximum number of the child patients by adopting such child patients to keep them alive.
He emphasised a need for the integration of maximum efforts to fight against the serious disease to save the child patients from the chronic disease.
Dr Zaffar Iqbal continued that the foremost-modern treatment centre in Azad Jammu Kashmir has started working at the District Headquarter Hospital Mirpur. Presently, over 43 patients of the disease are under-treatment in the Mirpur DHQ Hospital Thalassemia Centre through the transfusion of blood under the determined calendar.
He recalled that the center was set up in collaboration with the philanthropists engaged in serving the sick humanity.
Dr Zaffar pointed out that establishment of the centre was the pilot project of the integrated plan chalked out to extend latest medical treatment of the child patients through establishment of special centres in all the 10 district headquarters hospitals in Azad Kashmir.
He said that the Thallassemia Society of Pakistan was actively engaged to raise awareness about the disease by educating the public and various health delivery organisations in Pakistan. This would include lectures/symposia/seminars/workshops and demonstration to explain various negative aspects of the disease in simple language while pamphlets and literature will also be produced for educational purposes.