C’wealth to send medical experts
From Saira Ilyas

LONDON—The Commonwealth Secretariat will end a team of medical experts to Pakistan for three months following the devastating earthquake which killed 42 thousand and injured over sixty thousand people. An advance medical team from the Secretariat will arrive in the country this week to carry out an initial assessment and will be followed by the first batch of doctors, said the Commonwealth sources here Thursday. The medical experts, who will be deployed under the Secretariat’s Commonwealth Service Abroad Programme will be provided with medical kits and health equipment to assist their work. The Secretariat will work with Pakistan’s Ministry of Health to deploy members of the team to areas where they are most needed. “We are drawing on medical volunteers with wide-ranging expertise from within the Commonwealth family to assist Pakistan in coping with the emergency following the disaster. The Government of Pakistan has informed us of priority areas where it requires assistance and we will tailor our deployment to fill this need,” said the Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon while commenting on the deployment of the doctors.
McKinnon added he had conveyed to the Government of Pakistan and publicly “expressed the support and concern felt by fellow Commonwealth citizens at this difficult time”. “I urge other Commonwealth governments and the wider international community to continue to provide disaster relief to Pakistan in the form of food, tents, clothing and medicines”.