Shehri TV – Pakistan News, Current Affairs, Entertainment

By Mukhtar Alam (Pakistan News & Features Services) Admitting the first COVID-19 infected patient of the country at the privately run Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) in Karachi over a month back was not any cumbersome action by its team of doctors, according to a communication of the hospital on March 31, when the overall tally of corona positive patients raised to 1,938, with 26 deaths, for the country. Pakistan’s first case of Coronavirus infection, a 22-year-old, presented at the hospital on February 26 as he felt unwell and wanted to be tested for corona.  “Although he had COVID symptoms, he seemed healthy and calm,” Dr Faisal Mahmood of AKU Infectious diseases department recalled.  According to him, at a time when spread of the virus in many of the countries had become inevitable, he too was anticipating a healthcare emergency in Pakistan and as such he and his colleagues rapidly assessed the preparedness position and started coordinating with the Sindh and federa...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) New international guidelines on how to provide treatment for women having miscarriage surgery are needed after a large-scale international trial has provided new evidence. The trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved thousands of women at hospitals across four low and middle income countries, including the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi and 12 other hospitals across Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda.  The findings of the study show that administering antibiotics prior to miscarriage surgery had a possible benefit when pelvic infection was defined by global standards.  “Before the trial we had no idea what the right thing was, to reduce the serious complication of pelvic infection. We finally now have the highest quality evidence that a single, cheap, preventative dose of two commonly available antibiotics was not only safe but also appeared to reduce pelvic infectio...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) Shahmeer Khan was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a rare and complex congenital heart defect in which he had a combination of four heart defects. A congenital heart defect, it is often called the blue baby syndrome because it causes the skin to turn bluish in color as a result of deoxygenated blood in the baby’s system. Congenital heart disease (CHD) is one of the most common developmental defects, occurring in one per cent of the population world-wide. All babies who have Tetralogy of Fallot need corrective surgery. Without treatment, the child might not grow and develop properly. Untreated cases usually develop severe complications over time, which might result in death or disability by early adulthood.  Shahmeer is among the growing ranks of children born with CHD, who are surviving, thanks to life-saving pediatric cardiology programmes such as the one at the Aga Khan University (AKU).  “Lif...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) The Sindh Provincial Tuberculosis Control Programme (PTP) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with The Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) to establish it as a Treatment and Referral centre for patients suffering from tuberculosis (TB). TB is a contagious disease and an untreated patient can infect up to 15 people over the course of a year. Although treatable, the disease is widespread across Pakistan due to factors including delays in its diagnosis, inappropriate and unsupervised use of medicines and an absence of social support programmes for high risk populations.  These issues have not only failed to contain the disease but have also lead to the emergence of drug resistant forms of TB, as patients fail to the understand the importance of follow-up doctor visits and continued treatment.  The TB Treatment and Referral Centre at the AKUH had been established to address this alarmin...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) The National AIDS Control Programme in coordination with the Sind AIDS Control Program has established the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) as the HIV Treatment and Referral Centre. The public-private partnership aims to encourage HIV-affected individuals to get tested and seek appropriate treatment for HIV in a private and confidential manner.  Karachi alone has the highest number of HIV patients across Sindh, as revealed in a report by SACP. This is primarily attributed to the lack of awareness regarding the disease and its treatment, as well as the unavailability of HIV screening and a shortage of medicines.  AKUH has the largest group of Infectious Diseases specialists in the country which makes this Centre unique as it will provide treatment to both adults and children infected with HIV, as well as offering facilities for the prevention of parent to child transmission all under one roof....

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) The Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) has collaborated with the Karachi Down Syndrome Program (KDSP) to offer the first of its kind, ‘one stop health solution’ having made it easy for parents to bring their children to conveniently see different specialists at AKUH, in one clinic. Up until now, parents in Pakistan would struggle to find the appropriately trained specialists to treat separate health challenges faced by their Down syndrome children, often fleeing from one hospital to another, and finding it’s all a wild goose chase.  A team of internationally trained and experienced child specialists practicing at the AKUH, led by Dr Salman Kirmani and Dr Babar Hasan, joined forces with the world renowned Down syndrome expert, Dr Brain G. Skotko, as well as the founder of KSDP, Ali Allawala, and staff, to share best clinical practices for Down syndrome management at a session held in the AKU auditorium...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) The College of American Pathologists (CAP), an internationally recognized standard for clinical laboratories, has accredited the Aga Khan University Hospital’s Clinical Laboratories, the first laboratory in Pakistan. With 3,000 CAP requirements, accreditation is a rigorous process. A team of nine CAP inspectors, practicing professionals qualified through a CAP training programme, visited Pakistan last year to audit the laboratory’s quality records, staff qualifications, validation of tests, equipment, facilities, safety programmes and overall management.  The University Hospital’s CEO, Hans Kedzierski, stressed that clinical laboratory testing is an essential part of a quality healthcare service. “Since most of the decisions regarding a patient’s diagnosis and treatment are usually based on laboratory test results, for patients, this means timely and more accurate diagnosis.”  “Striving to meet pati...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) Imagine a hospital designed by a child, for a child. Instead of white walls, there are imaginative paintings and vibrant images all around the hospital. Uninspiring waiting areas are replaced with kids’ entertainment zones where children play and learn, and the hospital’s atmosphere is specially designed to make children feel at home. That’s what a children’s hospital of the future looks like; according to children, doctors, nurses, engineers, entrepreneurs, architects and other professionals who came together to design a kids’ healthcare centre of the future at the first-ever paediatric hackathon hosted by Aga Khan University (AKU), Hack Paeds 2017.  The three-day event saw over 110 participants of all ages and a variety of disciplines collaborate to develop innovative proposals that could be introduced at the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH)’s planned 12-storey Children’s Hospital.  The par...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) Stress, unhealthy lifestyle habits, and the prevalence of chronic diseases in adults are leaving Pakistan’s newborns more vulnerable to the threat of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), according to speakers at a recent event at the Aga Khan University (AKU) in Karachi. Experts at the International Conference on Stress and Conditioning: Impact on Maternal and Generation Health noted that economic, social and psychological pressures lead to stress and high levels of stress hormones affect the baby in the womb.  These chemicals can trigger genetic changes which stall the development trajectory of the brain and heart of a fetus resulting in lifelong effects on the fetus’s learning capability, social functioning and ability to fight disease.  Pakistan has approximately 80 million people who suffer from NCDs or life-style related illnesses such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) The Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), Karachi, has launched an advanced refractive surgery suite equipped with the latest laser technology for vision-correcting surgeries. The suite will enable eye specialists at the Hospital to customise treatment to each patient’s needs with improved performance in terms of precision, safety, comfort and recovery. “A refractive surgery is a procedure that corrects common vision problems to reduce or stop a person’s dependence on eyeglasses or contact lenses,” Dr Irfan Jeeva, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Service Line Chief of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology, AKUH, observed at the inauguration of the facility.  He described the most common vision problems as nearsightedness or myopia where distant images seem blurry, farsightedness or hyperopia where near images seem blurry, and astigmatism where close-up as well as distant images seem blurry.  ...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) With approximately 40,000 deaths and 90,000 new cases every year, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in Pakistan. The number of deaths can be reduced significantly with early detection and treatment, the participating experts at a walk to mark the Breast Cancer Awareness Month at the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) reckoned. The walk was part of a series of events organized by the AKUH to raise awareness for an early detection of the disease. Clad in pink, the walk was attended by men and women, patients, survivors, breast surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, nurses and the general public.  “Breast cancer is an uncontrollable growth of abnormal cells in breast tissue. These cells can form a tumor that may be seen on a screening mammogram and ultrasound scan even before they can be felt as a lump. Currently, medical science doesn’t know exactly wh...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) The innovators at Pakistan’s first-ever medical hackathon at the Aga Khan University, Karachi, have proposed new ways of tackling challenges facing Pakistan’s emergency rooms (ER). HistorER, the winning team at the Hackathon, came up with a unique QR (quick response) code system to address a persistent challenge faced by ER doctors.  Patients are often brought to emergency by family members or by bystanders who are not aware of their medical history. In the absence of critical information, doctors face delays in performing life-saving procedures.  The HistorER team has suggested that every person carry a medical card with a QR code with vital details: blood group, allergies, current medication and previous operations. Scanned, the QR code would provide doctors immediate access to information and the ability to initiate treatment promptly.  Speaking about the winning team’s solution, t...