When water keeps coming and systems keep failing, words like โresilienceโ and โpreparednessโ become moral obligations, not policy buzzwords. Pakistanโs summer of floods has again shown how rapidly climate shocks can cascade into a full-blown health catastrophe; entire districts submerged, millions uprooted, hospitals stretched beyond capacity and supply chains broken when they are needed most.
Pakistan is living through a painful paradox; technologies that could save thousands sit within reach even as climate shocks, infectious outbreaks and chronic neglect keep pushing more people to the edge. The floods of 2025 which displaced over a million people and affected several million more are not an aberration but the latest sign of an escalating humanitarian and public-health crisis.
The catastrophe exposed something more fundamental; Pakistanโs health system is neither resilient enough to absorb shocks nor intelligent enough to anticipate them. That gap is the difference between avoidable suffering and lives saved. The evidence is stark, floods this year forced families from their homes and damaged health infrastructure already brittle from previous disasters.
Infectious disease threats have surged in their wake; malaria exploded after 2022โs inundations (adding an estimated millions of extra cases across recent years), water-borne diseases and cholera continue to threaten displaced populations, and polio โ still endemic โ required another nationwide vaccination drive.
Non-communicable diseases remain a parallel emergency; maternal mortality hovers near 154 to 186 per 100,000 births, under-5 mortality at about 58 per 1,000, stunting affects nearly four in ten children, and neurological and mental-health needs outstrip specialist capacity by orders of magnitude.
Antimicrobial resistance has reached alarming levels, estimates suggest a majority of common infections have lost first-line antibiotic sensitivity even as the national action plan remains small in budget and scale compared with projected economic costs.
These are not separate problems; they are interlocking symptoms of weak health governance. Pakistanโs health financing structure still relies heavily on out-of-pocket payments (over half of health spending), which leaves the poor exposed during disasters. Data are fragmented across paper records, proprietary hospital systems and manual registers.
Privacy and governance frameworks are incomplete, cybersecurity defenses uneven, and workforce shortages limit the ability to act rapidly. Thus, the country lacks both the policy architecture and the data infrastructure to turn crisis into timely, targeted response.
Yet there is reason for focused optimism; Health Intelligence โ the deliberate use of data, AI, predictive analytics, remote monitoring and interoperable systems to guide policy and care can transform how Pakistan prevents, detects and responds to health threats.
When properly governed, Health Intelligence turns chaos into actionable foresight; climate and satellite data merged with syndromic surveillance can produce district-level early warnings for outbreaks, federated learning allows hospitals to train useful models without surrendering identifiable patient data, and remote-monitoring platforms can keep patients connected to care when roads are washed away.
Policymakers must therefore make three interconnected commitments now; institutionalize health security, invest in health intelligence as public infrastructure, and protect citizensโ rights while enabling responsible use of data.
Firstly, institutionalize health security. Pakistan needs a clear, resourced Health Security Policy that treats health systems as national security infrastructure. This policy should enshrine an independent National Health Security Council to coordinate across ministries (health, information technology, climate, finance, defense and interior), and provinces.
Secondly, invest in health intelligence as public infrastructure. Concrete steps should include a prioritized interoperability program โ a national minimum dataset with FHIR-based APIs for public hospitals and major private networks and three to five high-value pilot programs within the next 12 months (district-level flood and outbreak early-warning dashboards, AI-assisted emergency triage in urban tertiary centers, and a maternal-health remote-monitoring program for flood-affected districts).
Thirdly, close governance gaps and strengthen citizensโ trust. Finalizing and operationalizing a health data code of practice โ a full Personal Data Protection law tailored for health is critical. The policy must clearly define consent, permitted public-health exceptions, breach notification rules and standards for de-identification. Cybersecurity baselines and routine third-party audits should be mandatory for all systems that hold health data.
The political case for urgency is straightforward. The costs of inaction are both human and economic. When health systems fail, the immediate toll is high โ maternal and child lives lost, outbreaks that spin out of control, chronic disease exacerbations and mental-health crises. Economically, unchecked AMR, lost productivity from floods and repeated emergency responses will erode growth and deepen poverty.
Today, Pakistan stands at a decisive crossroads. The waters recede, but memory does not; citizens will remember whether their state kept them safe when tested. A modern Health Security Policy anchored by Health Intelligence, enforced by law, and financed for scale is the single most powerful way to turn those memories into a renewed social contract.
All in all, Pakistan must reframe health intelligence as sovereign infrastructure. Turning health intelligence into a public good โ governed, interoperable, secure and accountable โ is not merely a technology project. It is an investment in national resilience, dignity and the basic right to care. The choice before leaders is clear; build a smarter, safer health system now, or pay far more in lives and livelihoods later.