EVERY year, rabies, the deadliest zoonotic disease, kills more than 59,000 people worldwide. In Pakistan, it is one of myriad public health challenges poised to become an epidemic. Between January and April, Sindh recorded a staggering 85,891 cases of dog bites. Last year, it logged over 285,000 cases with 22 lives lost to the virus, as per data from major hospitals. While the chief minister has launched an anti-rabies campaign across Sindh, promised the
Child Rights in Focus
One day Suhana, a Year 6 student, entered the classroom with tears in her eyes. Her teachers had noticed that she had become unusually quiet over the past few months and was continuously failing her assessments. Teachers often called her out, asking her to focus more on studies and improve her test performance, but she never explained what she was going through. She would quietly sit in the corner, avoiding conversations and struggling to
BUCHIANA: Police have registered a murder case and arrested three suspects, including the victims’ mother and stepfather, after the bodies of a teenage stepbrother and stepsister were found in fields in Chak No. 566-GB in Buchiana. According to police, the gruesome incident created fear and panic in the area after the bodies were discovered on the morning of May 21. Police officials, including the SP Jaranwala and SHO Buchiana, reached the scene along with
KARACHI: A sessions court on May 20 sentenced a seminary teacher to 15 years in prison each in two cases after he was found guilty of sexually abusing two of his students in a local madressah in Landhi. Additional District and Sessions Judge Naseer Noor Khan, who is also the presiding officer of the Gender Based Violence Court East, found Qari Muhammad Anwar — a teacher in a madressah in Landhi — guilty of
BAJAUR/KHYBER: Two schoolchildren were killed after a quadcopter drone, reportedly operated from an unknown location, struck a hilly area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur district on May 21. Local residents and official sources told Dawn that the fatal incident occurred in the Shahi Thangi area, located about 25 kilometres from Khar, the district headquarters of Bajaur, around noon. They added that the children were returning home from school when they were hit, leaving them critically wounded. The
Pakistan’s child nutrition crisis has long been treated as a welfare issue when, in reality, it is a national emergency with generational consequences. To cater to this worsening crisis, Unicef has partnered with the University of Health Sciences to launch a capacity-building programme aimed at incorporating nutrition and child health interventions into the MBBS curriculum across Punjab. The initiative began on Monday with a three-day workshop on community-based management of acute malnutrition. Pakistan’s healthcare
SUKKUR: The Ghotki police have registered a gang rape case against some influential figures of Adilpur and their several associates on May 19 after much uproar on social media over the “horrific and inhuman treatment” allegedly meted out to the victim. The 15-year-old seemingly devastated girl had narrated her ordeal in a press conference, along with her parents a day earlier but the police described her claim as mere drama with ulterior motives. They
It is enough of an ignominy that this country is one of only two, the other being Afghanistan, where polio still remains endemic. However, it is even more shameful that even those brave souls who are trying to eradicate this disease from the country are routinely the target of violent, deadly attacks. It is almost as if there are some out there who do not want this country to be polio-free. The latest addition
THATTA: A severe measles outbreak has triggered widespread panic across the coastal belt of the Shahbunder taluka (sub-district) in Sujawal district, where five children have died within a week and more than 20 others are reportedly suffering from the highly contagious disease across various villages. According to local sources, the outbreak has spread rapidly through several remote coastal settlements. Residents have complained of a critical lack of immediate medical facilities and a delayed response
ISLAMABAD: An Islamabad sessions court sentenced Umar Hayat, the main culprit in the Sana Yousaf murder case, to death on May 19 after finding him guilty of killing the teenager at her residence in June last year. Hayat was arrested a day after 17-year-old Yousaf was shot dead in her Islamabad house on June 2, 2025. On Monday, 23-year-old Hayat — son of a retired government official and a TikToker — retracted his earlier
LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on May 19 issued notices to the Punjab government and other respondents on a petition challenging the decision to close educational institutions for three months during summer vacations. Justice Khalid Ishaq heard the petition filed by the All Private Schools Federation and sought replies from the respondents. The petition contended that the Punjab government had issued a notification ordering the closure of schools and colleges for three months
PESHAWAR: The government has launched a dedicated fleet of 42 specialised ambulances to provide timely and safe medical services to pregnant women and newborns in tribal districts of Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan. The service was formally inaugurated by Provincial Minister for Relief, Rehabilitation and Settlement Aqibullah Khan at the provincial headquarters of Rescue 1122 here on Monday. The director general of Rescue 1122, Shah Fahad, briefed the minister