Awareness drive to educate about burn injuries

KARACHI: A burn awareness drive has been recently launched in educational institutes in collaboration with Friends of Burns Centre and Essa Laboratories. The drive was supervised by Dr Ehmer-Al-Ibran, Associate Professor, Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) and In-Charge, Burns Centre, Dr K M Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK). The drive was a comprehensive awareness, organized to prevent and educate school-going children from burns injuries across the city.

While speaking to the press, Dr Ehmer Al Ibran informed that poster competitions and other activities had been arranged in schools to generate awareness in children. Several awareness sessions were also conducted in different educational institutes with the support of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA).

Dr Ehmer said about 1,113 patients with burns injuries were brought to the Burns Centre in the CHK in 2019, and 406 of them died during treatment while 599 patients were cured and discharged from the hospital.

The number of deaths resulting from burn injuries has declined in the last couple of years; however, more burns centres were needed in every divisional level health facility to reduce the death ratio further, Ehmer noted.

Dr Ehmer explained that the most common categories of burns injuries were those resulting from fire, electricity, chemicals, and hot water. He further explained that children generally suffered from burn injuries due to hot water and tea.

Ehmer said sprinkling cold water on fire and chemical burn injuries for a few minutes after the incident was vital to save the victim’s life. He advised the public to adopt preventive measures to avoid burns-related injuries. However, health experts believed that the number of burns injuries cases could easily be reduced if the Sindh Health Department completed the construction of five burns centers in different cities of Sindh as soon as possible.