• Hospitals report large number of chest infection cases, including pneumonia
• People urged to wear face masks and avoid going out unnecessarily
• Experts stress need for eating nutritious food to raise immunity levels

KARACHI: With a significant drop in minimum temperature, Karachi has been experiencing what the Met Office has described as “hazardous smog” that poses a serious health risk to people, particularly children.

Health experts have called upon the general public and vulnerable citizens to wear face masks to protect themselves from cold and raise their immunity levels by eating nutritious food.

The situation, they said, had worsened due to clouds of dust being generated throughout the day from the many under-construction sites in the city.

Speaking to Dawn, Chief Meteorologist Ameer Hyder Laghari explained that what Karachi was experiencing early morning these days was not fog but rather “hazardous” smog — a type of intense air pollution that reduces visibility and harms human health and the environment.

“In winters, the cold weather slows down the movement of air pollutants and the low wind speed fails to disperse them, leading to the build-up of smog. For fog to happen, we need high moisture content in the air that we don’t have right now,” he said, warning about the health impact of smog, especially on children.

The data released by the Pakistan Meteorological Department showed that the minimum temperature has dropped from 20 degrees Celsius this Monday (Nov 3) to 17 degrees Celsius on Friday (Nov 7). Relative humidity early morning was 17 and 16 per cent in the morning and evening on Friday, respectively.

On Friday, according to the Air Quality Index (AQI) report, Karachi has been ranked the fourth most polluted city in the world. The air quality has been declared “hazardous” to human health, said an APP report.

Wearing face masks

According to health experts, taking precautions — especially wearing a face mask and avoiding going out unnecessarily — is the best way to protect oneself from air pollution and to minimise the risk of respiratory illnesses.

“But, this is hard to implement in case of children. There is no doubt that dust allergy has become a major problem in Karachi and children have been the worst hit. In recent weeks, we have been seeing a huge number of cases of chest infection, many of them with pneumonia requiring admission,” said senior paediatrician Dr Ved Vaswani, currently associated with Burhani Hospital and Al-Mustafa Medical Centre, adding that the situation hadn’t improved yet.

Seconding his opinion, Dr Abdul Ghafoor Shoro representing the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) said that cases of chest infections in children had risen dramatically.

“Delayed medical intervention leads to pneumonia. Its symptoms include fever, severe coughing and difficulty in breathing,” he said. He emphasised that junk food is harmful and stressed the need to eat healthy food. He said that children should be protected from cold especially at midnight when there was a sudden drop in temperature.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2025