5,358 hospitalised, 675 hit by heatstroke in Sindh

With over 5,358 hospital admissions due to heat-related illnesses in 2024 and 675 confirmed cases of heatstroke between April and May this year, Sindh’s escalating climate emergency has prompted urgent local action.

Five of the province’s most heat-prone cities —Hyderabad, Dadu, Larkana, Mirpurkhas and Naushero Feroze — have now launched tailored heat action plans to mitigate the growing toll of extreme temperatures on public health.

The initiative comes as an estimated 8.6 million people across 26 districts in Sindh face increased food insecurity triggered by compounding heat and drought risks, while emergency health services struggle with shortages of IV fluids, oxygen, and cooling beds. In 2024 alone, 158 livestock deaths were also reported due to extreme heat.

In response, the Centre of Excellence for Trauma and Emergencies (CETE) at Aga Khan University (AKU), in collaboration with the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Sindh, convened a City Heat Action Plan Consultative Meeting on June 20, 2025.

The session brought together more than 20 senior officials — including assistant commissioners, additional deputy commissioners and district health officers — from the five high-risk cities to finalise structured protocols for heat preparedness.

“Each year, extreme heat pushes our healthcare systems to the brink and endangers lives, especially in vulnerable districts,” said Syed Shayan Shah, director operations at the PDMA Sindh. “These heat action plans give our local administrations concrete protocols —when to issue warnings, how to coordinate ambulance services, where to set up heat relief camps. It’s the kind of structured, city-level preparedness Sindh urgently needs.”

Developed over the past year as part of the HEAT (Heat Emergency Awareness and Treatment) project — funded by UK-based humanitarian agency Elrha — the action plans focus on early warning systems, public awareness, coordinated health response, and interdepartmental collaboration. The five cities were selected by PDMA based on their acute vulnerability to recurring extreme heat events.

Millions of people across Sindh, particularly low-income households, elderly individuals, daily-wage laborers, and residents of informal settlements, remain at risk due to limited access to cooling systems and frequent power outages.

The region’s fragile healthcare infrastructure is consistently stretched thin during heatwaves, with clinics reporting long wait times, admission delays, and depleted supplies, contributing to preventable fatalities.

“We are proud to have supported city administrations in building these action plans,” said Zaheer Chaand, project lead for HEAT at CETE, AKU. “This is a locally driven, evidence-informed effort that puts climate adaptation in the hands of those closest to the communities.”

The initiative is being hailed as a scalable model for climate resilience, equipping local governments with the tools they need to protect lives in the face of increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves.

With temperatures set to rise further in the coming years, these heat action plans may prove crucial in averting future health disasters across Sindh.