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N medical centre

needed after every

4 years: Dr Ishfaq

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Chairman Dr Ishfaq Ahmad Khan has said that there was a need for the setting up of on-the-average one nuclear medical centre in the country in every four to five years.

"Naturally this burden cannot be shouldered by the government alone, and the private sector should also come forward to establish cancer hospitals in the country," he said while talking to APP.

He said, "PAEC is willing, ready, and capable of extending all the necessary technical help in the planning, layout, selection of equipment, and its testing, etc. to interested parties".

He said PAEC has an on-going technical cooperation programme with the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital where, "we cooperate with the use of radiotherapy in the cancer management. Such cooperation can be extended to other hospitals as well".

In the field of medicine, he said PAEC has established nuclear medical centres in various cities in Pakistan, and the 12th nuclear medical centre at Abbottabad was fast coming up, where diagnosis and management of cancer was being done.

"Over a quarter million patients benefit from these centres every year. "Over the years several million patients have been treated at our medical centres".

Dr Ishfaq said Pakistan has mature level programmes in the field of nuclear medicine," which are comparable to any advanced country in the world. We are ready to share this experience with interested medical establishments both within and outside the country".

He said PAEC has achieved successes in the peaceful use of nuclear energy in various fields.

Around the world, and in Pakistan also, nuclear energy has been successfully employed in sectors of electricity generation, agriculture, hydrology, health and industry.

Since the very beginning of Pakistan's nuclear programme in addition to power production, he said we have given a great deal of attention to and have done a lot of research and development work in areas such as agriculture, hydrology, health, non-destructive testing and welding, etc, which can play a role in the socio-economic uplift of the country.

"We have received international recognition and appreciation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (Vienna) for our outstanding performance in the peaceful applications of the atomic energy".

In several areas such as hydrology and the saline soil agriculture, he said PAEC has become a model for other developing countries. He said PAEC has been sending experts to various countries in the Third World to help them with their programmes in these fields.

In this way, he said PAEC has been instrumental in enhancing the South-South economic cooperation. "We have, in fact, become donors of technology in certain areas such as utilisation of saline soils for growing agricultural crops and in the field of utilisation of tracer techniques for studying the subsoil movement of water".

The PAEC realising the importance of agriculture for our economy, has established four agricultural research centres, which are Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB), Faisalabad, Nuclear Institute of Food & Agriculture (NIFA), Peshawar, Nuclear Institute of Agriculture (NIA), Tandojam and the National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad.

"Our contributions to the national economy through the development of cotton varieties Niab-78 and Niab Karishma are quite well-known".

He said Niab-78 released to the farmers in 80s was responsible for revolution in cotton production. "This variety is still sown on 80 percent of the area under cotton cultivation in Sindh". However in Punjab, in recent years Niab-78 production was adversely affected due to attack of curl" leaf cotton virus (CLCV).

He said a new CLCV resistant cotton variety, Niab-Karishma, has been introduced successfully and is currently covering nearly 40 percent of the area under cultivation in Punjab.

These varieties are earning billions of rupees in additional income to the farmers.

New and improved wheat and rice varieties have also been evolved at PAEC research centres. In addition, he said, PAEC was working on pest control and disease control of our major crops. "One area in which we have made significant progress is biosaline agriculture in which we are now a lead country. We are also in the process of evolving new varieties of cotton at Nibge which have proved their superiority against CLCV in the preliminary trials".

Besides, he said, two of PAEC agriculture institutes have highly successful programme of reclaiming saline soils by biological methods which has been acknowledged by IAEA and now PAEC is providing technical assistance to seven other countries for reclamation and utilisation of water-logged and saline wasteland.

He said biotechnological approach has been developed at Nibge for the removal of chromium from tanneries waste-water, and detoxification of effluent from textile and pharmaceutical industries. Under the auspices of the IAEA, he said PAEC was sharing its know-how in this area with seven other countries in Africa, Middle East and South East Asia.ÑAPP