An international seminar brought clinicians, global-health leaders, policymakers and families together around an opportunity to prevent neural-tube defects through folic-acid awareness, supplementation and fortification of staple foods.
The event took place on 23 February 2024 at the AHL Auditorium and focused on public awareness around spina bifida prevention and folate fortification.
When a surgical condition becomes a prevention issue
Spina bifida sits at an important intersection between surgery and public health.
Children born with neural-tube defects may require complex and continuing medical, surgical and rehabilitation care.
But the conversation cannot begin only after birth.
The seminar challenged participants to consider prevention alongside treatment, particularly the role of folic acid and food fortification.
This is one reason the event belongs on a global-surgery platform: reducing preventable conditions can be as important as increasing capacity to treat them.
Speakers included Dr Pir Asad Aziz, Prof. Graham Fieggen, Prof. Kemel Ghotme and Prof. Gail Rosseau, alongside local institutional voices.
The discussions highlighted folic-acid supplementation, folate-rich diets and fortification of staple foods.
Prof. Sidra Jabbar addressed the consequences associated with folate deficiency and emphasized the importance of folic-acid supplementation, while Dr Pir Asad Aziz discussed experience relating to hydrocephalus and spina bifida initiatives in Sindh.
Bringing families into the discussion
One of the strongest aspects of the seminar was the participation of parents of a child living with spina bifida.
The official account notes that parents shared their experience, introducing the realities faced by families into what could otherwise have remained a technical public-health discussion.
That perspective matters.
Policy discussions become different when the consequences of preventable conditions are understood not only through epidemiology but through lived experience.
From individual supplementation to population policy
A central strength of folate fortification is that it moves prevention from an individual decision toward a population-level intervention.
The seminar therefore brought clinical and public-health perspectives together.
For GSRH, this is strategically important because it demonstrates a broader understanding of global surgery: surgical need is shaped by nutrition, maternal health, policy, prevention and access to public-health interventions.
A call to move upstream
The long-term significance of such discussions lies not simply in raising awareness.
The goal is to connect evidence with decisions that can reduce preventable disability.
A mature global-surgery agenda asks not only how a condition can be treated, but whether it can be prevented.
- 1.Evidence
- 2.Awareness
- 3.Fortification & supplementation
- 4.Prevention