Pakistanis want ban on formula milk

Islamabad: Health experts, MPs and civil society members of Pakistan`s Sindh province want a ban on formula milk.

Experts at a seminar in Karachi said nothing could be done to promote breastfeeding for children in the absence of a legal cover, the Dawn Sunday reported. Jamal Raza of the Pakistan Paediatric Association said Pakistanis spent an average of Rs.7 billion a year on substitutes and infant formulas.

Fehmina Arif of the Dow University of Health Sciences said children need to be breastfed within an hour of birth, also up to six months and, if possible, for two years or more.

There was also no check on marketing of breast milk substitutes by people with vested interests, health professionals said. Sindh`s Rehabilitation Minister Haji Muzaffar Ali Shujra promised that the government would soon introduce a bill to promote breastfeeding.
IANS