IMPORTANCEAchieving universal health coverage is one of the key targets in the newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.OBJECTIVE To investigate progress toward universal health coverage in 5 South Asian countries and assess inequalities in health services and financial risk protection indicators.
Background:Child vaccination is perhaps the first line of defense to ensure a healthy society. Unfortunately, the coverage of child vaccination in Pakistan is poor resulting in unnecessary yet preventable deaths. This study investigated the determinants and reasons for not vaccinating children in Pakistan.Materials and Methods:The study used the Pakistan Integrated Household Survey/Household Integrated Economic Survey 2001–2002 data. Demographic, distance to health facility, poverty status, literacy and education, and location of residence were used as determinants of nonimmunization of children. Descriptive statistics including frequency distribution, proportions for categorical variables and mean for continuous variables, and logistic regression analysis were done using the Stata 11.0.Results:Almost 7.73% children in Pakistan were never immunized. More than 87.4% of these lived in the rural areas. Prevalence of nonimmunization was highest in Balochistan compared to other provinces. Large households appeared to have increased risk of a child not being vaccinated. Moreover, low literacy and education of the head of the household and the spouse was also associated with low vaccination coverage. Distance from the health facility was found to be another factor related to nonimmunization of children. Increase in per capita income significantly decreased the risk of missing vaccinations.Conclusions:Prevention and immunization programs should focus more on high-risk regions such as Balochistan and rural areas. Literacy, education, and economic status were among the other significant factors associated with low vaccination rates, which need a special focus in the public policy to achieve the target of a healthy society.
We reviewed in this series forty patients of pediatric age who underwent resection for malignant tumors of musculoskeletal system followed by biological reconstruction. Our surgical procedure for reconstruction included (1) wide en bloc resection of the tumor; (2) curettage of tumor from the resected bone; (3) autoclaving for 8 minutes (4) bone grafting from the fibula (both vascularized and nonvascularized fibular grafts used); (5) reimplantation of the autoclaved bone into the host bone defect and fixation with plates. Functional evaluation was done using MSTS scoring system. At final followup of at least 18 months (mean 29.2 months), 31 patients had recovered without any complications. Thirty-eight patients successfully achieved a solid bony union between the graft and recipient bone. Three patients had surgical site infection. They were managed with wound debridement and flap coverage of the defect. Local recurrence and nonunion occurred in two patients each. One patient underwent disarticulation at hip due to extensive local disease and one died of metastasis. For patients with non-union, revision procedure with bone graft and compression plates was successfully used. The use of autoclaved tumor grafts provides a limb salvage option that is inexpensive and independent of external resources and is a viable option for musculoskeletal tumor management in developing countries.
Background and Objective:Poverty and inequality in health is pervasive in Pakistan. The provisions and conditions of health are very dismal. A significant proportion of the population (16.34%) of Pakistan is under 5 years, but Pakistan is in the bottom 5% of countries in the world in terms of spending on health and education. It is ranked the lowest in the world with sub-Sahara Africa in terms of child health equality. The objective of this study was to examine child health inequalities in Pakistan.Materials and Methods:We analyzed data from Pakistan Integrated Household Survey/Household Integrated Economic Survey 2001–2002, collected by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Government of Pakistan. Coverage of diarrhea and immunization were used as indicators of child health. Stata 11.0 was used for data analysis. Descriptive statistics including frequency distribution and proportions for categorical variables and mean for continuous variables were computed.Results:Children under 5 years of age account for about 16.34% of the total population, 11.76% (2.5 million) of whom suffered from diarrhea in 1-month. The average duration of a diarrheal episode was 7 days. About 72% of the children who had diarrhea lived in a house without pipe-borne water supply. Around 22% children who had diarrhea had no advice or treatment. More than one-third of the households had no toilet in the house, and only 29% of the households were connected with pipe-borne drinking water. About 7.73% (1.6 million) children had never been immunized. The main reason for nonimmunization was parents’ lack of knowledge and of immunization.Conclusion:Child health inequalities in Pakistan are linked with several factors such as severe poverty, illiteracy, lack of knowledge, and awareness of child healthcare, singularly inadequate provision of health services, and poor infrastructure.
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