Mansoon rains, floods and other disaster, all of these started in July 26, 2010. Pakistan was affected by the worse flood in the recent decade.Nearly, one fifth of the entire landmass and more than 20 millions of the population were directly affected in this flood.More than 1.9 millions houses and many infrastructures including transportation system, health facilities and schools were damaged or destroyed.About a quarter of the country’s harvest has been destroyed and the next year’s harvest seems to be threatened too. Estimated Sindh’s agricultural loss is at least US$1 billion which is quite high for a country with low GDP. Much of the cotton crop as one of the major Pakistan’s export has been wiped out. The social and economic effect of this tragedy seems to be already more than all the three recent major natural disasters namely Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, Southeast Asian earthquake in 2005 and Haiti earthquake in 2010.

BACKGROND Burn wound infections carry considerable mortality and morbidity amongst burn injury victims who have been successfully rescued through the initial resuscitation. This study assessed the prevalent microrganisms causing burn wound infections among hospitalized patients; their susceptibility pattern to commonly used antibiotics; and the frequency of infections with respect to the duration of the burn wounds.METHODS This study was carried out at Burn Care Centre, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Islamabad, Pakistan over a period of two years (i.e. from June 2010 to May 2012). The study included all wound-culture-positive patients of either gender and all ages, who had sustained deep burns and underwent definitive management with wound excisions and skin auto-grafting. Patients with negative cultures of the wounds were excluded. Tissue specimens for culture and sensitivity were collected from burn wounds using standard collection techniques and analyzed at microbiological laboratory.RESULTS Out of a total of 95 positive microbial growths, 36 were Pseudomonas aeruginosa (35.29%) as the most frequent isolate found, followed by 21 Klebsiella pneumoniae (20.58%), 19 Staphylococcus aureaus (18.62%), 10 Proteus (9.80%), 7 E. coli (6.86%), 7 Acinetobacter (6.86%), and 4 Candida (3.92%). A variable antibiotic susceptibility pattern was observed among the grown microbes. Positive cultures were significantly more frequent among patients with over two weeks duration of burn wounds.CONCLUSION P. aeruginosa, K. pneumoniae and S. aureus constituted the most common bacterial microbes of burn wounds in our in-patients cases. Positive cultures were more frequent among patients with over two weeks duration of burn wounds. Early excision and skin grafting of deep burns and adherence to infection control measures can help to effectively reduce the burden of these infections.

In Pakistan traditional medicines has been a strong part of our cultural heritage and has played a significant role in providing health care to a large portion of the population especially Tibb-e-unani and Homoeopathy. Efforts are made for the development of comprehensive policy and strategies for utilization of traditional medicine in the mainframe health care system which includes education, selection of essential medicine, extent of regulatory measures, criteria for Quality Control and Quality Assurance, Measures to Integrate Traditional Medicine into the main stream of the Health Care System, cultivation, Preservation and sustainable use of commonly used herbs at Primary Health Care Level, Research and Development, Intellectual property rights and protection of indigenous knowledge. Recently Prime Minister has approved the Draft Bill to regulate the manufacture, sale, storage, import and export of these medicines. Their current official status e.g. acceptability, recognition etc in the country, various aspects of the suggestive policy and its strategies for implementation and salient features of the regulatory measures proposed are described and discussed. The main purpose of this presentation is to share our experience to seek your feedback and valuable inputs to develop our objectives in accordance with the international standards.