PAKISTAN’S health system is trapped in a loop of doom. A localised electrical failure caused the blaze that killed 14 newborns at the Pims nursery, says an inquiry committee’s report about last month’s tragedy in Islamabad. It holds the hospital management responsible for systemic and institutional collapse due
The suspension of four doctors and three health workers in Sindh after five rabies deaths in three weeks is an attempt to patch a much more complex problem. The victims, including two young boys aged five and six, died despite being reported to anti-rabies units. This is because
The pain of losing a newborn child cannot be explained, only felt. The risk of this tragedy is regrettably exacerbated by both an inadequate healthcare system and dangerous social norms that push people into untimely parenthood. Proof of this inadequacy lies in recent findings relating to Tharparkar Civil
PAKISTAN’S nutrition crisis is not short of diagnosis. What it lacks is the machinery and political discipline to act on what is known. That was the most useful message to emerge from DawnMedia’s two-day Act for Nutrition conference in Islamabad, where experts argued that malnutrition cannot be confined
WHERE does one begin? The mind goes first to the parents of the 14 newborns who died early on January 26 in the Mother and Child Health Ward of Islamabad’s Pims Hospital. The heart falters at the sheer scale of their loss. Their grief is shared across the country
A horrible tragedy has occurred at the heart of the capital city, shaking the nation to its core. Fourteen newborn babies are dead after a fire tore through the Mother and Child Hospital at PIMS. They were among the most helpless patients imaginable, incapable of fleeing or calling
Sindh currently operates hundreds of rabies prevention centres that offer free vaccines, available to anyone who simply walks in. Yet, despite this apparent vigilance, the province has already neared the tally for last year’s rabies’ deaths with four months still to go. In 2025, as many as 22
KARACHI: Pakistan’s economic debate rarely strays far from familiar territory. Inflation, public debt, exports, taxation and the energy crisis dominate political speeches and newspaper headlines alike. These are undoubtedly pressing concerns for a country grappling with recurring fiscal instability. Yet beneath these visible economic challenges lies another crisis
PAKISTAN’s presence among countries with the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in Asia is a matter of shame. Globally, the virus is found in drug addicts, sex workers and other high-risk sections. What makes our crisis more distressing is the victims’ profile: children and low-risk groups who have been infected
THE Sindh government’s agreement with the World Bank to combine health, nutrition, sanitation, social protection and agriculture programmes acknowledges that child stunting cannot be treated by the health department alone. The proposed secretariat, district committees and dashboard could replace scattered schemes with targets and accountability. But institutional architecture
THE deaths of 144 children from measles and diphtheria in Karachi during the first seven months of the year expose a grave failure of routine immunisation. That failure is evident in the large number of children who receive their earliest vaccines but are never brought back for the
EVERY year in August, Breastfeeding Week arrives with the same kind of messaging all over the media: ‘breastfeeding is best’. That is where the conversation begins and ends. This year, the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, alongside Unicef and the WHO, has deliberately questioned the math behind it