Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on Thursday announced setting up of country’s first liver transplant centre in Islamabad to be completed by year 2011.

Addressing the launching ceremony of country-wide mass awareness campaign against Hepatitis, the Prime Minister said establishment of liver transplant centre was in line with government’s efforts to provide health facilities to people at their doorsteps.

The liver transplant centre will be setup at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), for which the Prime Minister announced a Rs 200 million one-time grant. The centre will be looked after under the Prime Minister’s Programme for Prevention and control of Hepatitis.

The Prime Minister said the centre would facilitate the patients who had to travel abroad for treatment due to unavailability of liver transplant centre in the country.

He said the focus of Prime Minister’s Programme for Prevention and control of Hepatitis was going to shift from treatment to prevention, however said his government was aware of the miseries of those suffering from end stage of liver disease, for whom the only hope was liver transplant.

Realizing the importance and magnitude of this public health problem, Gilani said the programme had been up-scaled by the government raising the allocation from Rs 2.59 billion to over Rs 13.904 billion.

He urged the provincial governments to align their programmes with the federal strategy and allocate additional resources for the initiative.