Corrections needed to Pakistani programme details.

I read the paper by Bhutta et al.1 published in the Bulletin with great interest and I congratulate the authors. Maternal and child health is a significant problem in developing countries. Factors such as poverty; cultural factors which restrict women’s autonomy, promote early marriage or support harmful traditional practices; nutritional deficiencies; reproductive factors like young age of mothers at first birth; distance to health services; and inadequate health-care behaviour or use of services are all associated with poor maternal and infant outcome.2 In 1994, the Ministry of Health in Pakistan launched a community health worker programme known as the National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Health Care to improve maternal and child health in lowincome Pakistani communities.3 The programme regularly recruits women and trains them to provide family planning and primary health care services in their own communities. These women known as lady health workers (LHWs) are the frontline of primary health care in many lowincome communities of Pakistan. One LHW is responsible for approximately 1000 residents, or 150 homes, and she visits 5 to 7 houses per day. The scope of work and responsibility of LHWs