Research in local context can help prevent diseases

PESHAWAR, March 31: Lack of evidence-based research has been hampering the plans of government to devise a realistic policy regarding prevention of diseases, officials say. "We have studies, conducted by international organisations, in this regards but they are not applicable in local context. We need local research to find out causes of different kinds of diseases in different areas and devise policy accordingly," they said. They added that they had got the services of epidemiologists but funds for research were not available. The government had established Provincial Health Services Academy in 1995 to start clinical as well as health system research and devise plans for controlling diseases and removing weaknesses from the system. "The total budget allocated to the academy is Rs16.5 million of which Rs16 million go to the salaries of staff while only Rs500,000 are kept for research," they said. The government had jacked up the health budget from Rs4 billion to Rs12 billion between 2005 and 2011 but there is no improvement in the healthcare facilities being provided to people. The officials argued that health department desperately needed research on the prevalence of HIV/Aids, polio, tuberculosis and mother and child health but non-availability of the required funds was an obstacle to it. "The failure of Family Planning Programme is glaring example in this regard. Most of the people want family planning but government has no mechanism to facilitate them," they said. Same was the case with HIV/Aids and polio, they said. However, the hospitals conducted clinical research through trainee medical officers and specialists doctors without informing health department, they said. "The research conducted by doctors is a part of their academic requirements and has nothing to do with the improvement of healthcare delivery," officials added. The doctors, they said, had never contacted health department to know the needs for research studies or to ask the government about the type of research it needed. The officials said that the Centre for Control and Prevention of Diseases Atlanta had provided training to five epidemiologists from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Islamabad but there was no use of such training if funds were not available for research. They said that government should allocate specific funds for research to ascertain the causes of diseases and find out flaws in health system, particularly at rural level.