Case Study: The Controversial Launch of Pakistan's Maiden Human Milk Bank

Infant mortality, stunting in children and mother's health are all at alarming level in Pakistan, owing to numerous socio-economic factors. Recently, a much needed Human Milk Bank , first of its kind, was launched by Sindh Institute of Child Health and Neonatology (SICHN) and UNICEF. The aim is to offer a life saving service of premature children, who are too fragile to overcome their shortcomings from commercially available formula milk. Thus human milk donated is utilized to save the lives of such infants.

In a classic case of not taking into account social, cultural and religious sensitivities, the project based on media reports available got endorsed from a religious academia, Darul Uloom Karachi initially (Dec 2023) however the same academia this week withdrew its earlier ruling or fatwa, pushing the entire operations to a halt and unfortunately the future of any such initiative in uncertainty.

The case has now been referred to Islamic Ideology Council, which will issue its ruling however considering the reservation already forwarded by influential religious figures, it will be an long uphill task to overcome such roadblocks.

From the face value, it seems that the earlier decree from a regional institute was done without evaluating the complexities associated with such pioneer initiatives, in a country as divided as Pakistan. Lessons from campaigns like #Polio should have served as guideline, with over 3 decades have failed to satisfy certain segments of society, seeing this life saving vaccine as anti Islamic as well as a brigade of conspiracy theories.

The project should have been endorsed from a national body, which it seems is Islamic Ideology Council rather than a regional academia. In such case consensus would have been obtained through pre launch engagement of all stakeholders, thus embedding and addressing concerns and suggestion of a diverse segment.

Furthermore, an outreach and communication campaign stands missing, which should have enabled image building and strong popular support which as of now is close to negligible.

By all means, the project is a life saver, and should have commenced decades earlier rather than today. Not only that the need is to scale it to rural and grass root level nationwide, where cases of this nature are the most. However, the gap in implementation has placed this realization a distinct reality.

Lets hope this serve as a learning ground for all such projects in near future, by ensuring identification and removal of all roadblocks which can harm the objectives and implementation.

#sdg3 #qualityhealth #pakistan