Challenges to improving health care in Pakistan

LAHORE/DUBAI, 17 May 2013 (IRIN) - Hamza Mazhar, a 35-year-old teacher from Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, says he never wants to see the inside of a government hospital again. full report

Marshalling smartphones, gravediggers to fight dengue in Pakistan

LAHORE, 10 May 2013 (IRIN) - On the frontline in the fight against dengue fever in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city, the authorities have a sharp eye for spare car tyres. full report

Red tape hits humanitarian work in NW Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, 25 April 2013 (IRIN) - Delivering humanitarian aid in northwestern Pakistan has recently been hampered by attacks on schools, aid workers and polio vaccination teams, and bureaucratic procedures for aid projects are making matters worse. full report

Slow retreat of monsoon floods in Pakistan hinders recovery

SUKKUR, 23 April 2013 (IRIN) - It is seven months since the monsoon rains fell on Mohammed Qayyum’s village in the Taib area of Shikarpur District in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh. full report

Far from home, but closer to school in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, 17 April 2013 (IRIN) - Ten-year-old Aliya and eight-year-old Asma arrived at Jalozai refugee camp two weeks ago, after escaping a recent surge in hostilities between government forces and militants near the border with Afghanistan. full report

Fighting in Pakistan’s Tirah Valley displaces 40,000 people

PESHAWAR, 1 April 2013 (IRIN) - Around 40,000 residents of Pakistan’s Tirah Valley, close to the border with Afghanistan, have fled their homes after renewed fighting in the last few days, according to the Disaster Management Authority in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FDMA). full report

Battling militants’ ban on polio vaccines in Pakistan’s North Waziristan

BANNU, 28 March 2013 (IRIN) - Parents and officials are going to great lengths to immunize children after militants imposed a ban on polio vaccinations in Pakistan’s restive North Waziristan Agency. Government officials are withholding money and identity documents from groups affiliated with the ban, and parents are travelling long distances to get their children vaccinated, in some cases smuggling the vaccine back home. full report

Building flash flood resilience in Pakistan’s mountainous regions

PESHAWAR, 7 March 2013 (IRIN) - In his village near Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Nazeer Butt, 40, points to his ruined house on a steep mountainside. full report

How best to serve Pakistan’s 750,000 IDPs?

PESHAWAR, 1 March 2013 (IRIN) - Residents escaping the latest round of fighting in Khyber Agency in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) say they did not even have time to bury their dead before leaving their homes in the Tirah valley. full report