Indus Vitals

MICS 2024 provides vital insights for policymakers and development partners, highlighting neonatal and under-five child mortality rates KARACHI: A latest report of Punjab Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) has revealed that crucial indicators of a child’s nutritional landscape remain insignificantly changed in seven years since 2018 across the province, with a stunting rate among children under five years at 27.3% in 2024, against WHO cutoff point of about 2.5% in healthy population. Providing key insight from data providing overview of the well-being of children, women and households in Punjab, the recently released MICS 2024 provides vital insights for policymakers and development partners, highlighting neonatal and under-five child mortality rates at 33 and 55 (per 1,000 live births), respectively, infant mortality rate at 49, rate of infants under 6 months exclusively breastfed at 33.9%, and mixed feed rate at 33%. According to 2017-18 MICS report, the infant mortality ...

Smog in its worst form of the outdoor air pollution during the winter months has once again frequented over various districts of Punjab including Lahore and other adjacent parts of the country, creating overwhelming concerns in public health, education, environmental and economic sectors. Both the communities and the governments could not go beyond short-term management of the very sources of smog – a threatening man-caused problem.  Reports suggest that the Punjab government issued various sets of guidelines covering the schools, hospitals and other businesses. Seeing no let-off, it declared state of emergency in Lahore and Multan, calling for closure of schools, special arrangements in hospitals and suspension of construction activities, etc. as the air-quality index (AQI) reading turned furious –setting new records. Government and private offices were asked to observe the hybrid system of operations encouraging 50 per cent of staff to work from home, besides imposing a ban on ...