Today is the annual World Health Day, marking the anniversary of the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s founding in 1948. Celebrated every year since 1950, this year’s theme is ‘Together for health. Stand with science’. The main goals of the campaign are to stand with science by engaging with evidence, facts and science-based guidance to protect health; rebuild trust in science and public health; and support science-led solutions for a healthier future. This is a rather prescient theme given that we now live in an era where information on health, like information about everything else, is usually distributed and consumed online. Sadly, the digital sphere remains rife with misinformation about health and, during the Covid-19 pandemic, false anti-vaccine propaganda led many across the world to refuse vaccines at the cost of their own health and that of others. This is also a big reason why Pakistan is one of only two polio-endemic countries in the world, along with Afghanistan. While the country has made progress in tackling this problem, with the majority of environmental samples collected during the first two months of 2026 testing negative for the poliovirus, the problem is still not over yet. And,while health misinformation is a threat that the country has had to contend with, it also faces a massive problem when it comes to simple lack of awareness about health issues and basic access to healthcare. In 2024, some reports estimated that 50.0 per cent of Pakistanis do not have access to basic primary healthcare services and approximately 42.0 per cent have no access to health coverage.
In the previous fiscal year, the country spent less than 1.0 per cent of its GDP on healthcare, a figure far behind global and regional benchmarks. WHO data indicates that Bangladesh spent over twice as much on health as a percentage of GDP in 2023 (2.17 per cent). This not only limits provision of health services but also the ability to make people aware of health issues in the first place. As such, health problems tend to fester beneath the shadows in Pakistan. This is part of the reason why around 19 million Pakistanis are living with hypertension without knowing it. Diabetes, once a disease confined largely to adults, is now becoming a serious health concern among adolescents in Pakistan. While reports have said that the rise is being driven by lack of breastfeeding during infancy, it is also a fact that unhealthy lifestyles are the default in Pakistan. Opportunities for physical activity are rare and the cheapest and most plentiful food often tends to be the unhealthiest.
There are some very straightforward solutions to these problems. We must raise spending on both health services and health awareness, while also cracking down on issues like health misinformation. However, in a nation seemingly beset by a constant stream of crises, even simple solutions can become an ordeal. While reports from last month say that essential medicines remain widely available across Pakistan and their prices have not increased despite a more than 20 per cent rise in petrol and diesel prices, one has to wonder how health checkups will be made affordable in a country where many are now wondering about how to pay for the fuel to get to work in the morning.
