HEALTHY societies can only be built through medical science and solidarity. This is one of the main lessons that I have learned over three decades in the field of international health, working in many countries where we had to combat pandemics, deadly disease outbreaks and natural disasters.

One of my first field experiences was working to eradicate malaria. The reason why I began working on malaria is because I came from a poor rural area in southern Henan province, China, where the disease was endemic. As a child, every year I suffered from this disease. I felt terrible. After becoming a doctor, I came back home and I spent 10 years leading a field team to eradicate falciparum malaria — and we did it. We could not have done it without medical science.

This month, under the theme ‘Together for health; stand with science’, World Health Day celebrated how medical science saves and protects millions of lives each year in Pakistan, and worldwide, improving our lives and building healthier and more prosperous societies for all. Each year on April 7, we mark the founding of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1948, of which Pakistan is a founding member.

Almost eight decades ago, Pakistan was among the first 61 member states that paved the way and ratified the constitution of the WHO with a clear unified mandate: promoting a healthier and a safer world for all. Today, more than 190 countries are members of the WHO.

We could not have done it without medical science.

The WHO is proud and thankful for our eight-decade partnership with Pakistan, which has played a pivotal role in promoting global public health during a period in which the power of science and international health cooperation has improved our health and our lives in countless ways.

Thanks to medical science, vaccines are today one of humanity’s greatest achievements. Over the last 50 years, vaccines have saved over 150 million lives. Every year, Pakistan reaches seven million children and 5.5m women of childbearing age with life-saving vaccines. Thanks to polio vaccines, more than 20m people are able to walk today who would otherwise have been paralysed. Over the past 30 years, Pakistan has reduced polio cases by 99.8 per cent.

Today, those with eyesight issues — like me — can wear glasses to see and read without problems. Medical science made it possible.

Thanks to medical science, today, malaria can be treated and, for the first time, ending malaria is within reach. In partnership with the WHO, and with funding support from the Global Fund to defeat HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, in 2024 Pakistan screened over 11.4m malaria suspects and provided treatment to 2m confirmed malaria patients. In addition, 7.8m insecticide-treated nets were distributed across 22 high-malaria burden districts of the country, helping to reduce the number of cases from 2.7m in 2023 to 2m in 2024.

Thanks to medical science, we found a cure for tuberculosis. Over the last 25 years, global efforts to combat tuberculosis have saved 8m lives. In Pakistan, over the last decade, in partnership with the WHO, Pakistan has provided diagnosis and lifesaving treatment services to over 5m people affected by tuberculosis.

Let me share with you that, as a child, I suffered from tuberculosis. Fifty-five years ago, treatment was limited. I was lucky to survive, since at that time not everybody did, but, if I survived, it was thanks to medical science. Today, half a century later, thanks to medical science, the new advanced treatments are extremely effective and tuberculosis patients can be completely cured.

Today, thanks to anaesthesia, surgeries no longer mean enduring unimaginable pain.

In Pakistan, tha­nks to medical science, every year, the WHO partners with the health ministry to provide lifesaving treatment for 70,000 children affected by severe acute malnutrition with medical complications.

Thanks to medical science, in 2024, the WHO validated the elimination of trachoma as a public health problem in Pakistan, winning a battle against a disease that can result in irreversible blindness if left untreated.

Today, doctors can see inside your body, without even making a cut, with technologies such as X-ray, CT scan, MRI and ultrasound. Thanks to science, telemedicine brings doctors to places they couldn’t reach before. Artificial intelligence is accelerating medical innovation.

Maybe, the part of my work in Pakistan that inspires me the most is seeing first-hand the curiosity of young students — how eager they are to learn and how they are standing with science with clear determination — leading the way in building a better and healthier world for all, regardless of social or economic status. The WHO will always stand with them, and with medical science. n

The writer is the World Health Organisation’s representative in Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2026

© Dawn