Your cart is currently empty
Karachi: Friday, October 4, 2019
Getz Pharma Pvt. Ltd and Indus Hospital are entering into a strategic partnership to eradicate Rabies from Karachi. Getz Pharma will provide financial assistance, fund-raising support, and marketing expertise to Rabies Free Karachi (RFK) project of the Indus Hospital to eliminate Rabies from Pakistan.
In Pakistan, it is estimated that 160,000 dog bites occur annually, resulting in almost 5000 human deaths. 40% of the bitten victims are children. Most deaths from Rabies are not reported, since patients are taken to either faith healers or shrines. Compounding the issue of dog bites is the dwindling supplies of essential anti-Rabies vaccine and immunoglobulin.
The vision of the RFK program is to implement an anti-Rabies program by implementing the One-Health Approach recommended by World Health Organization (WHO), World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The One-Health Approach aims to eradicate Rabies universally by 2030 (#zeroby30). Killing of dogs is both cruel and ineffective, RFK and Getz Pharma believe in vaccinations of dogs and reducing dog population through surgical sterilization.
After achieving success in the pilot phase, the RFK initiative is now scaling up its program to cover all of Karachi in order to eradicate the incidence of Rabies in the city. According to the RFK Program Director, Dr. Naseem Salahuddin, the momentum has now become a movement to save the people from this dreaded disease. “We are grateful to Getz Pharma for their tremendous support, and hope that other members of civil society and government institutions will join in this movement.”
Getz Pharma is the Founding Partner of Indus Hospital Rabies Free Karachi program, which will be implemented effectively all across the city by investing in preventive measures. During the course of this project, Getz Pharma will provide support for conducting epidemiologic research on dog bites and Rabies in Pakistan in order to record the factual statistics about their incidence. It will also support the marketing activities of the program, which will raise awareness about Rabies and promote kindness to animals. Regarding this partnership Getz Pharma’s MD and CEO Mr. Khalid Mahmood said, “Getz Pharma has been part of several initiatives in the fields of education, healthcare, culture, and environment. Rabies is a fatal disease that affects both humans and dogs and as a conscientious company that is concerned about public health, we want to ensure that it is eradicated from Pakistan. Indus Hospital has been fighting on this front and we will do our part in combating Rabies.”
Today the Indus Hospital and Getz Pharma formalize their strategic partnership on the Rabies Free Karachi initiative as they aim to save citizens from a dreaded disease. The plan is to achieve initial success in Karachi within two years and then to further scale up to the rest of the country.