Punjab Launches Smog Medicine Alert Initiative

APP

Lahore: In response to smog-related health concerns, Punjab Minister for Primary and Secondary Healthcare Khawaja Imran Nazir announced the formation of a Smog Medicine Alert Group to ensure the steady availability of essential medicines.

The group, which includes representatives from the Drug Control Wing and the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA), aims to prevent shortages and counter illegal hoarding of medications needed to treat smog-induced health issues.

Read More: https://thepenpk.com/nearly-900m-people-exposed-to-climate-shocks-un-warns/

The minister emphasized the need for coordinated efforts, with the Punjab Drug Monitoring System overseeing the supply chain to prevent disruptions.

The group will monitor stocks of key items such as inhalers, antibiotics, nasal drops, and masks to ensure their availability in hospitals and markets.

Pharmaceutical stakeholders were urged to prioritize these medicines, with the government warning against artificial shortages.

Minister Nazir also advised citizens to wear masks over the next two months to protect against smog-related health issues.

Meanwhile, Nearly 80 percent of the world’s poorest population — about 900 million people — are directly exposed to climate hazards intensified by global warming, bearing what the United Nations has described as a “double and deeply unequal burden.”

“No one is immune to the increasingly frequent and severe effects of climate change such as droughts, floods, heatwaves, and air pollution.

But it’s the poorest among us who are facing the harshest impacts,” said Haoliang Xu, acting administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in a statement to AFP.

Xu emphasized that COP30, the upcoming UN climate summit in Brazil this November, presents an opportunity for world leaders to treat climate action as a form of poverty alleviation.

According to the annual UNDP-Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) study, about 1.1 billion people, or 18 percent of the 6.3 billion across 109 countries, live in “acute multidimensional” poverty.

This measure factors in deprivations such as child mortality, inadequate housing, lack of sanitation, limited access to electricity, and poor education — with half of those affected being children.

The report cited the example of Ricardo, a member of Bolivia’s Guarani Indigenous community living outside Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Ricardo, a day laborer, shares a small house with 18 family members, including his three children and parents.