9th National Thalassaemia Conference inaugurated at FMH College of Medicine & Dentistry

Lahore: The 9th National Thalassaemia Conference & Workshops was inaugurated today at FMH College of Medicine & Dentistry Lahore. A large number of thalassaemia patients, parents, doctors and volunteers from all the 46 Thalassaemia societies and centers working in the country attended the national conference.

Thalassaemia experts from all over the country will be presenting about the latest treatment and prevention of Thalassaemia in this two days national conference. After the inauguration, the house elected Lt. Gen. (R) Moin Ud Din Haider and Dr. Yasmin Raashid as the president and the general secretary of Thalassaemia Federation of Pakistan. Other elected officials included Dr. Sarfraz Jafri -Vice President, Dr. Nadeem Samad-Finance Secretary, Yasin Khan – Joint Secretary,  Mian Attiqu ur Rehman – Fund Raiser, M. Iqbal – Public Relation Secretary, Dr. Ihsan Ul Haq -Parent & Patient Representative, TFP, Dr. Jovaria Mannan- Chairperson Medical Advisory Board and  Hussain Jafri, Mr. Musawir Tareen, Dr. Zafar Iqbal,   Waqar Nasir, Dr. Fakhar,  Rehman Ali Sahil,  Zakir Hussain, Brig (R) M. Fayyaz, Miss Rumasa Noor, Younis Hussain, Dr. Haroon Maimon, Dr. M. Usman and Maj Gen (R) Suhaib Ahmed as Executive Committee Members.

During the annual general meeting session of the conference, following recommendations were made:

• Thalassaemia medicines and products should be considered orphan drugs
• Government should collaborate and assist Thalassaemia societies in creating awareness and in providing treatment, medicines, products and prevention free to all Thalassaemic patients
• Government should provide thalassaemia treatment and prevention services at all tehsil and district levels
• Government should assure that all blood is properly screened so that Hb B & C are not transmitted through blood transfusions
• Pharmaceutical companies should bring the price of Thalassaemia medicines and products down by reducing or not charging profits
• All provincial governments should follow Sindh province and pass Thalassaemia screening bills