'Road mishaps major cause of mortality, morbidity'

Road accidents are the major cause of mortality and morbidity and pose serious challenges to public health system at global level, so government must enact and enforce legislation to control road accidents. This was stated by Dr Sania Nishtar, President of Heartfile while addressing a meeting on "Road Safety in Pakistan" jointly organised by the Ministry of Health, World Health Organisation and Heartfile here on Saturday.
The Director of General Health, Khalif Bile Mohamud, World Health Organisation, Country Representative, Junaid Razzak, Aga Khan University, Javaid Chaudhry, public relation officer and Dr Abdul Ghaffar, policy and systems specialist in WHO, Global Forum Research, also spoke on the occasion.
The main objective of the meeting is to make recommendations for establishment of a "National Safety Commission" for interdisciplinary group of stakeholders with the aim to improving safety at all levels and establish a committee on road safety to foster a collaborative environment and facilitate inter-sectoral action for road safety.
Dr Sania said that country needs upgradation in provincial ordinances, motor vehicle ordinances and implementation of National Highway Safety Ordinance.
Khalif Bile Mohamud, country representative of World Health Organisation, said that recognising the severity of the issue WHO dedicated the theme of the year to road safety with objective to creating awareness and support for greater investment for road safety at world-wide.
He informed that although road accidents are not strictly speaking a diseases but road accidents killed 1.18 million people and around 20 million to 50 million were disabled in the.
He said that education is an essential component of the road safety package and is particularly useful in conjunction with the passing of new laws or other safety regulations.
He further informed that road safety campaigns of WHO such as poster campaign, public service announcements have not proven to be effective in the changing behaviour.
Khalif Bile Mohamud further informed that WHO is engaged in constructive dialogues with vehicle manufactures and encourages them to ensure that all motor vehicles must meet safety standards sets for high-income country, regardless where the vehicles are made, sold and used.
He said that WHO has not made any specific recommendations on mobile phone use while driving but research is still going on.
He said that 35 countries have banned "hand held mobile phones" while driving.
He suggested that even poor countries with few resources should appoint co-ordinating agency for road safety and must develop a road safety strategies and plan of actions.