The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday launched Rs 7.2 billion free treatment project for the patients of blood cancer in the province.
The project was launched in a ceremony at a local hotel.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Finance, Engineer Mohammad Hamayun Khan was the chief guest on the occasion.
The project will be carried out under public-private partnership and the provincial government for this purpose has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Novartis, a multi-national pharmaceutical company.
Under the project all the deserving patients of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in the province will be registered with a specially established focal point in Medical Oncology unit at Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) from where they will be provided free medicines.
Pakistan has about 12000 blood cancer patients and about 1000 of them belong to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Blood cancer is a deadly disease and its treatment is very costly and poor patients could not afford it.
Therefore, the provincial government in collaboration with Novartis launched this free treatment and medicine scheme in the province Addressing the ceremony, the minister said that despite financial constraints the provincial government allocated maximum funds for treatment of patients of blood cancer.
He said that last year the provincial government launched Bacha Khan Khpal Rozgar Scheme and allocated funds for the provision of free treatment of hepatitis and promotion of technical and vocational education.
He said that the provincial government also agreed with the proposal of the Novartis for provision of free medicines for the cancer patients.
Briefing the participants of the ceremony, Dr Abid Jameel, of the Department of Oncology, HMC said that CML used to attack people aged between 45 to 50 years in Europe and American continents, but in Pakistan it attacks in the prime age of 35 to 40 years.
He said that the medicines produced by Novartis for the treatment of blood cancer is a revolution in the medical history and successful treatment of 80 percent patients is a breakthrough in the field of medical sciences.
He said that the cost of one month dosage of the medicine was Rs 1,20,000 and annual cost of over Rs 1.4 million, which was not affordable by the poor patients and the provincial government was also lacking resources.
Therefore, it signed an MoU with Novartis under which the medicine to be provided free of cost to the patients.
The provincial government will now pay only Rs 8000/- per month for medicines of the patient.
Later, the minister formally inaugurated the scheme with distribution of free medicines among the patients.
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