Mending Kids’ Hearts: Children dying preventable deaths from congenital heart disease

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi

(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Pakistan shares a statistic with India, China and Indonesia: these four countries are home to half the children born with heart defects worldwide.

In Pakistan, a child born with a hole in the heart, known as congenital heart disease (CHD), is now healthier and living longer. But survival depends on how severe the defect is, how quickly it is diagnosed and how well it is treated. 

With most births taking place in rural communities, the number of babies born with heart defects is unclear – an estimate suggests that more than 60,000 infants with a hole in their heart are born each year. About half of these young patients will have a critical CHD and require surgery to survive one year. 

The Aga Khan University Hospital has stepped in to assist these children and their families. Its Mending Kids’ Hearts campaign, now in its fourth year, offers help and hope to those without financial means by covering the cost of quality surgical and medical care of children needing hospital procedures. 

Since the launch of the campaign in 2016, over 1,800 paediatric patients have undergone cardiac procedures at the University Hospital - a majority of whom received financial assistance of nearly PKR 400 million. 

To expand the reach of the Mending Kids’ Hearts campaign, this year AKUH is targeting 300,000 individuals through a camp in collaboration with Aga Khan Maternal and Childcare Centre, Hyderabad. The aim of the camp is to treat children who are overlooked by the health system, and to ensure that they get diagnosed and treated at the University Hospital in time.

Dr Babar Hasan, Service Line Chief of AKUH Children’s Hospital said: “We are now closer to our goal of saving over 1,000 children with CHD each year by 2020. At this rate, we are hoping to exceed our targets. None of this would have been possible without the support of our community which has stood by us in our mission to provide high quality care to young children regardless of their financial background.” 

The Mending Kids’ Hearts campaign has been working to raise both awareness of paediatric CHD and funds to support patients through the AKUH Patient Welfare Programme. 

Its most recent fundraising event saw supporters of life-saving corrective CHD surgeries gather at the Karachi Golf Club on Sunday to compete in AKUH’s signature golf tournament to enable access to quality cardiac care.

The four-man Texas Scramble format was won by the UMA team comprising of Khalid Jamil Siddiqui, Asad I. A. Khan, Khurram Khan, and Arshad I. A. Khan with a gross score of 58, 14 under par on the championship course.

AKU breaks ground on a new research building for women and child health

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi

(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Aga Khan University celebrated the groundbreaking of a new Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health (CoEWCH) building on its Stadium Road campus today.

The new 149,000-square-foot building will consolidate the role of the CoEWCH as a focal point for the University’s research and policy advocacy efforts that aim to generate new insights into Pakistan’s interconnected health challenges in support of national development priorities for women and child health.

“The Centre will be the first of its kind in low and middle income countries,” said Professor Zulfiqar Bhutta, founding director of the CoEWCH and co-director of the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health in Toronto, at the groundbreaking ceremony. “It will enable us to expand and enhance the University’s study of the social determinants that shape and impact the well-being of children and women: the underlying conditions in which people are born, grow, live and work.” 

The CoEWCH brings together experts from the fields of medicine, public health, liberal arts, nursing and education and provides training opportunities on priority issues related to women and children. 

“Pakistan may have missed the Millennium Development Goals and targets for maternal and child health,” Professor Bhutta said. “However, the Sustainable Development Goals offer a huge opportunity for value added work across disciplinary boundaries. The CoEWCH will continue to work in a concerted manner to help women and children in Pakistan and other developing countries live healthy and meaningful lives.”

Speakers at the event noted that the CoEWCH will focus its work on priority topics of concern affecting Pakistan’s development such as why malnutrition is chronic and widespread in many parts of the country, how to alleviate the impact of gender inequality and insecurity on the country’s health, and the most worthwhile interventions to enhance the well-being of our ‘bulging’ youth population. 

The new facility will be based over three floors and will house three state-of-the-art laboratories for microbiology, epidemiology and nutrition; a research data management unit; faculty offices and dedicated spaces to build the capacity of young researchers in the field. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a key partner of the CoEWCH.

Over the past 10 years, the University’s researchers in maternal and child health have collaborated with national and international partners to generate vital evidence into the country’s most pressing health issues. 

Their work has led to the introduction of life-saving vaccines into Pakistan’s Expanded Programme of Immunization, validated the effectiveness of 56 low-cost interventions to tackle deadly preventable diseases, championed reforms in the Lady Health Worker programme and presented the most detailed insight of the country’s nutritional challenges through three cycles of Pakistan’s National Nutrition Survey. 

Other speakers at the event included AKU President Firoz Rasul and Sadruddin Hashwani whose Hashoo Foundation donated to the facility. 

AKU inaugurates anatomy, surgery learning studio

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi 
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Aga Khan University (AKU) Medical College cut the ribbon on its new anatomy and surgical skills lab, introducing the latest available learning aids in an enlarged space for students to learn about the human body structure, and enable residents and practicing physicians and surgeons to rehearse difficult and complicated surgical procedures before performing them on real patients.

The opening of the Anatomy and Surgery Learning Studio, which coincided with the AKU’s 35th anniversary, took place as a new cohort of students prepares to join the university renowned for preparing its graduates to be innovative thinkers, collaborative clinicians and critical problem solvers. Anatomy is a cornerstone of medical education. 

The renovation of the old Anatomy Lab and adjacent spaces to create additional teaching and learning spaces has integrated state-of-the-art technology and interactive learning with the classic anatomy dissection experience to better prepare students to become great clinicians. 

Medical, nursing, dental students and other disciplines allied to medicine will all learn about human anatomy in the new Learning Studio using different approaches including didactic lectures, practical sessions based on models, prosected materials, radiological images, cadaveric dissection as well as newer methods using interactive computer-based software.

The Learning Studio also features BodyViz, the latest in anatomy software that will allow students, both undergraduate and graduate, to explore and better understand anatomical concepts. 

The software fuses advances in visualisation technology with the accuracy of radiology, as it renders interactive 3D visualisations directly from MRI and CT data on a laptop, PC and iPads. 

It integrates easily into all levels of anatomy curriculum and medical training; supplements anatomical study done through cadaver and can support preoperative planning. 

“Our Anatomy and Surgery Learning Studio is the most advanced educational environment to learn and teach anatomy as well as surgical skills in Pakistan; it will forever change the way we educate about the human body at the Aga Khan University," the outgoing Dean of the Medical College, Dr Farhat Abbas, remarked at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. 

The new Sstudio was initiated by ideas from our faculty and made possible by a generous gift from a long-standing supporter of education at AKU. 

In recognising the donors, Dr Firoz Rasul, President of the Aga Khan University said: “Excellent academic programmes, such as ours, are dependent on excellent educational resources, including people, learning spaces and technology. While honouring our past accomplishments, we are also looking to the needs of our students who are learning in an ever-changing environment for education and medicine to produce the highest qualified professionals.” 

Facility tours and demonstrations were provided to highlight the technology and resources available to medical students who will learn hands-on about anatomy and pathology.

AKU-EB’s students triumph in Pakistan’s educational landscape

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi

(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Despite being a relatively young institution, the Aga Khan University Examination Board (AKU-EB) has repeatedly proved that its students are capable of attaining success by virtue of the quality education that they receive during their secondary school education. 

While their annual results and internal student accomplishments have been a source of pride for them, this year’s May 2017 results for both their Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) examinations were also accompanied by a sense of both vindication and triumph due to the positive validation that AKU-EB has attained from external sources. 

The overall pass rate for Year I and Year II SSC students came out at 85.7 per cent and 90.6 percent, respectively. Furthermore, 69.4 percent of Year I students and 81.2 percent of Year II students scored at or above 60 percent across all of their examinations.

Their SSC Year II High Achievers were all girls, with first position belonging to Fizza Rubab of PECHS Girls’ School. Fizza attained an impressive 1037 out of 1100 total marks, i.e. a total of 94.27 percent across all her exams, and a grade of A-1.

“This came as a huge surprise to me and I am immensely grateful to my school, teachers, friends and family for the support, encouragement and prayers throughout the year. The style of AKU-EB made it possible to achieve this position. Under this marvelous board, we are focused and precise unlike the style of conventional study practiced in Pakistan,” Fizza, one of the high achievers, remarked.

In second place, Samreen Raja of Nusrat Jehan Academy Girls High School obtained 1029 out of 1100 marks, scoring 93.54 percent. In third place, Shamsa from Aga Khan School, Garden, attained 1027 out of 1100 marks and scored 93.36 percent.

Continuing a trend of strong academic foundations, the pass rates for Year I and Year II HSSC candidates was tallied as being 87.9 percent and 87.8 percent respectively. 

In addition, 72.7 percent Year I candidates and 75.2 percent Year II candidates scored 60 percent or above across all of their examinations. As with this year’s SSC results, female candidates proved themselves at the higher end of scores, with all of our top three overall positions belonging to women.

Mariam Sajjad from the Aga Khan Higher Secondary School, Karimabad, Karachi, obtained first position by scoring 1050 out of 1100 total marks (95.45 percent) across her HSSC examinations.

 “I feel on top of the world. I can't express my feelings in words; it feels great to see your hard work pay off. Studying with AKU-EB infused a sense of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, which helped broaden my horizons. My advice to current and future AKU-EB students is that even if the path seems tough, don't stop because once you reach your destination, you will realize that all the hard work was totally worth it,” Mariam stated.

Urooj Usmani, also from the Aga Khan Higher Secondary School, Karimabad, Karachi, scored 1028 out of 1100 (93.45 percent) which earned her second place. Finally, Nusrat Jahan College’s Muqaddas Alvi came third in the national average by obtaining 1022 out of 1100 marks and a 92.90 percent score.

Shahina Aliraza, Principal of the Aga Khan Higher Secondary School, Karimabad, had good cause to celebrate. 

“I am feeling delighted and ecstatic on our students’ remarkable achievement both 1st and 2nd position in Pakistan. The AKU-EB students, as compared to other Boards, are more confident and critically conscious. They are the kind of learners who always strive to reach and explore their potential,” she reckoned.

 “AKU-EB students consistently perform better in University Entrance Tests, as demonstrated by the fact that 90 per cent of our 2015 HSSC graduates received admission to various universities. This is also reaffirmed by a recent study conducted by a national body on examination quality and standardization, which found that students from AKU-EB are more likely to perform better on University Entrance Tests as compared to other examination boards,” AKU-EB's Director Dr Shehzad Jeeva noted.

“My heartiest congratulations to the successful students of the AKU-EB. I am sure their strong educational foundation will lead them to greater successes in life. It is only through perseverance and determination that they can achieve their goals,” Dr Naveed Yousuf, Associate Director of Assessment, added.

Free Medical Camp at Usman Memorial Hospital on Sunday

The Usman Memorial Hospital is organizing a free medical camp at Hospital premises Plot # ST-12, Block-1, Hussainabad, Federal "B" Area, on Sunday, 31st January 2010 at 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Dr. Abdul Ghaffar Bilo, Professor of Paediatric, Aga Khan University Hospital and Dr. Muhammad Tufail, Medical Director, Patel Hospital will inaugurate medical camp.

Four to five million Pakistanis are carriers of hepatitis B

An estimated 300 to 350 million people worldwide are carriers of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) – a major hepatitis virus. In Pakistan, four to five million people are suspected HBV carriers. The virus can cause a number of liver diseases, including chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis (scarring of the liver) and liver cancer. To raise public awareness, Aga Khan University (AKU), in collaboration with the Pakistan Society for the Study of Liver Diseases (PSSLD) organised a programme on hepatitis viruses.

Close to two million people worldwide die each year from HBV and according to the World Health Organization, the virus is 50 to 100 times more infectious than HIV/AIDS. HBV is endemic in parts of Asia, with more children being affected as the virus can be passed from an infected mother to her baby at birth. Dr Khalid Mumtaz, Consultant Gastroenterologist, Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), said that the high number of HBV carriers in Pakistan places an enormous burden on patients, their families as well as on the government and its resources. Large amounts of money is spent on treatment but given the limited options available, prevention is better than cure. The best way to prevent hepatitis B is through vaccination, and Dr Mumtaz recommended that infants be vaccinated immediately after birth. Providing an update on vaccinations, Dr Wasim Jafri, Consultant Gastroenterologist, AKUH and President, PSSLD, advised that three doses of the HBV vaccine are essential for full protection. Contrary to earlier advice, if a dose is missed the vaccination schedule can be continued without repeating the initial doses.

Another hepatitis virus, hepatitis C, is usually spread through blood from an infected person. Dr Muhammad Salih, Consultant Gastroenterologist, AKUH, said that there is a rising incidence of hepatitis C in Pakistan due to poor awareness, lack of basic health care and below-par blood screening facilities. The multiple use of disposable needles and syringes, substandard transfusion services and poor dental and surgical health care are all issues that need to be highlighted though wider public awareness.

If detected in time, there is an 80 to 90 per cent of curing hepatitis, according to Dr Saeed Hamid, Consultant Gastroenterologist, AKUH and Vice President, PSSLD. He pointed out however, that treatment is expensive. He also said that the disease cannot be cured if liver cirrhosis occurs, so timely diagnosis is essential.

The best measures against hepatitis E, yet another hepatitis virus, are to avoid dirty tap water and to follow good hygiene and sanitation practices, said Dr Rustam Khan, Consultant Gastroenterologist, AKUH. Hepatitis E is primarily spread through water contaminated by sewage. Dr Hasnain Shah, Consultant Gastroenterologist, AKUH said that this infection can be severe and may prove fatal in pregnant women, and advised them to be careful about drinking clean water and eating only well-cooked food during pregnancy.