Health

QUETTA/KARACHI: The Congo virus situation in Quetta has taken a serious turn as another patient lost his life at Fatima Jinnah Chest Hospital on Monday, while five more healthcare providers affected by Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) virus in Quetta’s Sandeman Hospital were shifted to a private hospital in Karachi. This brings the total number of patients brought to Karachi …

New Delhi will restrict the use of private vehicles for a week in a bid to offer residents some respite from the toxic smog choking the megacity, authorities announced on Monday. Delhi, home to 30 million people, is blanketed in acrid smog at the onset of winter every year, primarily blamed on stubble burning by farmers in the neighbouring agrarian states. The …

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says the cascading impacts of disasters in Pakistan have caused significant loss of life and reversed development gains. In order to respond to the impacts of the climate crisis, it points out, the country must understand, identify and attribute cascading effects to specific climate shocks and stressors. This will help Pakistan develop ways …

Authorities in the smog-ridden Indian capital New Delhi on Sunday extended an emergency school closure by a week, with no signs of improvement in the megacity’s choking levels of pollution. Every autumn New Delhi is blanketed in acrid smog, primarily blamed on stubble burning by farmers in the neighbouring agrarian states. The city is regularly ranked as one of the …

Public healthcare institutions in Singapore were under cyberattack on Friday but there was no evidence that data had been accessed, a government-owned agency said. The so-called distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which make websites or network resources unavailable by flooding them with malicious traffic, began on Wednesday, national health IT agency Synapxe said in a statement. Internet access at public …

People in New Delhi woke up to a thick layer of toxic haze on Friday, and some schools were ordered to be shut for two days as the air quality index (AQI) entered the “severe” category in several parts of the Indian capital. A filthy smog forms over Delhi every winter as cold, heavy air traps construction dust, vehicle emissions …

LAHORE: The city continued to remain the second most polluted city of the world with a very unhealthy air quality on Thursday. Maximum 442 Air Quality Index (AQI) was recorded at 10am in the morning, according to data from the global air quality monitoring platform, iqair.com. The city’s air quality slightly improved in the afternoon to AQI of 196 till …

ISLAMABAD: Another environmental (sewage) sample from Karachi has been found positive for polio which raised the current year’s tally for Pakistan to 55, according to sources in the National Polio Laboratory at the National Institute of Health (NIH). The sources said the lab confirmed detection of ‘Type-1 Wild Poliovirus (WPV1)’ in environmental sample collected from Karachi. “The genome sequencing of …

MUMBAI: India’s cricket board on Wednesday said fireworks at the ongoing ICC World Cup matches in Mumbai and New Delhi will be banned due to hazardous pollution levels. The hosts will take on Sri Lanka at Mum­bai’s Wankhede Stadium on Thursday. But concerns about air quality dominated news in the commercial capital of India, forcing the Board of Control for …

KARACHI: Caretaker Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar said on Wednesday Pakistan is facing a trade-off between raising climate finance and development finance. “I think we need to be conscious that getting money is a big issue that we face in addressing the climate agenda,” she said, noting that seeking money for climate finance undercuts other development finance requirements. Speaking at …