People of the country suffer from malnutrition and communicable and non-communicable diseases mainly due to lack of awareness, social stigma, illiteracy, ignorance and poverty, said speakers at a workshop on Sunday.
In a bid to make the public aware of the most dangerous and contagious diseases, the Health Education Bureau of the government and Bangladesh Centre for Communication Programmes jointly initiated a ‘sensitization programme’, which will be held in every district of the country with the participation of media people, stakeholders and policy-makers.
The workshop, titled ‘Health education and promotion with stakeholders and journalist’, the first of its kind, was organised on Sunday at a city hotel. ‘Our aim is to prevent both communicable and non-communicable diseases as well as malnutrition in the country and we will be successful only if we can create widespread awareness in the public,’ said Nur Mohammad, deputy chief and programme manager of the Bangladesh Health Education, at the inauguration of the workshop.
Dr Anwar Hossain Munshi, joint secretary to the Ministry of Health, and Hosne Ara Tahmin, additional director-general of the Directorate General of Health Services, were present along with others at the inauguration.
Four papers were presented at the workshop on the related issues. Dr Mostafa Zaman, WHO’s local national programme officer of non-communicable diseases, presented a paper on ‘Facts and impacts of non-communicable diseases’, and Dr Mahfuzar Rahman, department of community medicine of NIPSOM, presented a paper on ‘Facts and impacts of communicable diseases’.
Biman Kumar Saha, executive director of the National Nutrition Programme, spoke on malnutrition, and Shaukat Mahmood, president of the National Press Club, talked on the importance of media coverage of health-related issues. ‘These diseases have become a great challenge at this moment,’ the speakers pointed out. They urged the media to write various articles on the actual facts and impacts of communicable and non-communicable diseases to create public awareness.
Mohammad Shahjahan, director and CEO of the BCCP, concluded the half-day workshop in the afternoon. AKM Zafarullah Khan, secretary to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare was present as chief guest at the closing session, and Dr Md Abul Faiz, director-general of DGHS was also present, along with others.
Source: The Daily Commercial Times
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