The global outbreak of coronavirus has affected Pakistan as well with 15 confirmed cases in Karachi, followed by confirmed cases in Gilgit Baltistan, Islamabad, Quetta and Hyderabad. The COVID -19 virus is believed to have travelled from Iran, where a 22-year-old man recently visited Iran and was found infected, and from war-stricken Syria. Pakistan has halted all international flights and suspended all the schools and educational institutions as a precautionary measure to deal with COVID-19.

Pakistan is spending around 0.4% of its GDP on the health sector, mostly dominated by government revenues, developmental partners, world funding and various external private resources to NGOs. Due to environmental and political changes, the essential requirement of health differed in provincial and federal administrated areas. The allocation of health sector development in the federal budget has declined steadily. This is reflected in the worst affected areas such as Sindh and Balochistan where 20-30% of children are retarded, have high infant mortality rate due to malnutrition, diarrhoea and pneumonia. Due to lack of infrastructure and limited budget, it results in the selected allocation of budget between federal and provincial administered regions. Now the outbreak of COVID would impact the sustainable development goal 2025 of Pakistan that aims to improve the health condition of its population through universal access of affordable quality, essential health service, the implementation of health care delivery. 

The question that arises is Pakistan capable of dealing with the pandemic coronavirus irrespective of differed allocation and to what extent? Pakistan requisite of a comprehensive strategy to deal with the outbreak. It has to operationalise health care delivery service in both federal and provisional administrated regions. The Government of Pakistan has to deal with extensive health infrastructure along with adequate resources such as drugs, instruments, supplies and technologies. The need is to enhance their health technologies, information technologies with proper record maintenance to improve and deal with the deteriorating health conditions in Pakistan. 

(The writer is a Ph.D. scholar, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)