Ambassador Saidullah Dehlavi,
Chairman, Board of Trustees, Aga Khan
University,
Dr. Saraceno, Distinguished keynote speaker,
Distinguished delegates, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
Assalam-o-Alaikum
It is my great pleasure
to welcome you this morning on behalf of the University. The topic of the symposium
is 'Mental Health' research; this seems to me a very timely intervention. Mental
illness can strike any of us, yet the reasons are often obscure and multi factorial.
While some forms of treatment can be highly effective, others are often based
on fear and superstition, and can lead to great suffering.
This points to the need
for research that is comparative, culturally sensitive and perhaps most importantly
interdisciplinary. For example, the present symposium at AKU where research
is taken very seriously, the characteristics I have just mentioned are stressed
and encouraged at all stages of our work. It is because we do this for ourselves
that we are able to reach out and welcome colleagues from Pakistan
and internationally to join us to share their work and ideas.
This symposium is an annual
event and as the University expands so will its scope. We are delighted to be
able to welcome in particular Dr. Saraceno our keynote speaker. Before inviting
him to come to the rostrum let me say a few words of introduction.
Dr. Saraceno holds medical
degrees from University in Milan
and the University of Parma.
He has also trained in Public Health and Epidemiology in Milan,
he has conducted extensive research on Psychotropic drug utilisation in general
practice, psychiatric service evaluation, and quality assurance in mental health
and others.
His academic appointments
have included a ten-year stint as head of the Laboratory of Epidemiology and
Social Psychiatry at the Mario Negri insititute in Milan.
He has taught at a number of universities in Latin America
and India and
lectured at Harvard. He is also Invited Professor of Psychiatry at University
of Geneva.
Dr. Saraceno has been active
in many professional and government organisations. His association with the
World Health Organisation (WHO) goes back a long way. He was director of the
WHO collaborating center for research in mental health at Mario Negri Institute
and advisor to the WHO and the Pan American Organization, advising government
on mental health service reforms.
In 1996 he was appointed
Programme Manager of the WHO special programme Nations for Mental Health.
In 2001 he was the leader
of WHO World Health Report on Mental Health
Currently, Dr. Saraceno
is the WHO Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance
Dependence.
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