Mother & Child Health Week will begin here on Monday (today) across the province with the aim to minimise the mortality rate particularly among pregnant women and infants.
"The campaign will continue till April 30th and all officials of health department and lady workers will fully participate in the drive," said provincial Secretary Health, Hashim Raza Zaidi, while addressing a press conference here on Sunday to launch the programme.
The programme is being co-ordinated by National Programme for Family Planning & Primary Health Care Sindh in collaboration with UNICEF. He said diarrhea cases among children would be main focus of the programme, as the disease mainly occurs in summer season. He said Mother & Child Health Week was first piloted in district Tando Allayar in Sindh province in April 2008, which had very encouraging results.
The programme was then spread to 11 districts of the province. The Health Secretary said that during the week, Lady Health Workers (LHWs) have been assigned the task to de-worm children from age of 2 to 5 years by giving Tablet Mebendazole, vaccination of children up to age of two years and vaccination of pregnant women. Besides, LHWs will conduct health education section with different groups of women on antenatal health care, breast feed, birth spacing, personal hygiene and nutrition to provide maximum health awareness to the community at grass root level.