Gul Hamad Farooqi Last month eight members of a poor workers’ family – two brothers, their mother, wives, and three children – perished when their house caught fire after a gas cylinder blast in Ayun, upper Chitral.  They were brought to the District Headquarters Hospital Chitral but couldn’t be provided treatment due to a lack of facilities and staff. The …

Two young auto-workers at work vulnerable to hazards. Photo by the writer. Gul Hammad Farooqi CHITRAL: The child labour in extreme unsafe environment has become a norm in Chitral as young mechanics, often of tender ages, are forced to work in auto-repair shops without safety gears. The practice has rendered a large number of children prone to hazards related to …

Every year about 800,000 people take their own life — 11.4 people per 100,000 population and in Pakistan, it is 1.4 per 100,000, say reports and experts Herald Report Suicide is the 15th leading cause of death globally and around 11.4 people per 100,000 population kill themselves every year and in Pakistan, it is 1.4 persons per 100,000 population. Every …

Women in Pakistan sew sanitary pads to break period taboo for girls BOONI (Chitral): Bent over her hand-crank sewing machine, Hajra Bibi stitches sanitary pads for the women of her mountainous village in northwestern Pakistan, one of many rural areas in the deeply conservative country where periods are still taboo. “I am responding to a crisis,” said the 35-year-old mother, …

YDA, PMA observe August 26 as ‘black day’ against the attitude of health authorities, give 10-day ultimatum to government to accept five-point charter of demands, enforce regularisation act by Inayat Abadali Gilgit: Young Doctors Association (YDA) and Pakistan Medical Association GB chapters observed ‘black day’ against what they called exploitation of the young professionals, ‘irresponsible’ attitude of health department bureaucrats …

Professional bodies of teachers, students, workers, doctors and political activists reject IMF’s bailout  prescriptions, cut in PSDP Herald Report Academics, students, workers, young doctors and progressive activists have rejected the proposed plan of privatisation of key sectors of education, health and cut in education budget.  The recent decisions of privatizing health sectors and cut in budget for Higher Education Commission …

Anayat Baig tells a tragic story of neglect, inequality and superbugs Pakistan is facing world’s largest extremely drug resistant (XDR) typhoid outbreak. More than 5,000 cases were reported from Hyderabad and Karachi in the first phase. To give the reader an idea of the rise of the scale of this outbreak consider the following: Some 11 cases were reported in …

HAH Report Kabul: The Aga Khan Health Services (AKHS) has taken over management of health care facilities in the Bamyan and Badakhshan provinces of Afghanistan. An agreement to this effect was signed at the Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health the other day. Through the project, AKHS will now manage over 1,015 health posts in villages, 158 basic and primary health …

These three habits help your body, and also have a positive impact on your brain. By Tara Swart You might think that the impact of aging on the brain is something you can’t do much about. After all, isn’t it an inevitability? To an extent, as we may not be able to rewind the clock and change our levels of …

Ali Ahmed Jan An illegal appointment allegedly made in violation of rules and without fulfilling the lawful formalities in the health department of Gilgit-Baltistan has surfaced, according to sources and documents copies of which are available with the High Asia Herald. The appointment is a fresh example of nepotism and favouritism rampant in almost all departments of Gilgit-Baltistan exposes the …

Environmental cues can trigger powerful memories of substance use. What happens when those memories are disrupted? Lauren Aguirre This fall, a person addicted to cocaine arrived at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. There, he or she watched a video of people using cocaine and was shown a small bag of what appeared to be either crack or …

Hasan Mansoor KARACHI: The Pakistan Association for Mental Health (PAMH) has said the country is increasingly getting ‘depressed’ with each passing day; while its largest city is offering much larger figures of people suffering from mental disorders. “The actual number of the people with depression and other mental disorders is much more than the recognised 37 per cent aggregate and …

Farman Ali & Anayat Baig A new research report about an outbreak of typhoid in Hyderabad, Sindh, caused by drug-resistant “superbug” strain, has set off alarming bells among health practitioners and government officials. Scientists have warned that treatment options for the new strain are running out, after uncovering the genetic cause of the strain’s antibiotic resistance. Researchers from Britain’s Wellcome …

LONDON An outbreak of typhoid fever in Pakistan is being caused by an extensively drug-resistant “superbug” strain, a sign that treatment options for the bacterial disease are running out, scientists said on Tuesday. Researchers from Britain’s Wellcome Sanger Institute who analysed the genetics of the typhoid strain found it had mutated and acquired an extra piece of DNA to become …

High Asia Herald Report ISLAMABAD In the neonatal intensive care department of an Islamabad hospital, scrawny infants struggle for survival — victims of a vacuum in resources and education in the country with the highest newborn mortality rate in the world. “In Pakistan, a baby dies every second minute,” says Haider Shirazi, head of the neonatal department at the Pakistan …