Coronavirus takes the life of another on-duty health worker from Gilgit-Baltistan. Malik Ashtar, a 55-year-old radiology lab worker from Nagar district, had contracted COVID-19 locally while working with affected patients.

He was transferred to a quarantine center set up by the district administration after he showed symptoms. Around a hundred other Coronavirus patients who have recent travel history, mostly to Iran, have been kept in this quarantine center in Minapin, Nagar.

Hundreds of Zaireen who have recently come back from Iran have been kept in various quarantine centers in Gilgit-Baltistan. The most affected districts remain Nagar, Gilgit and Skardu.

The affected paramedic Malik Ashtar passed away four days after being shifted to this quarantine center in Nagar, Gilgit-Baltistan’s most hard-hit district.

His burial took place in Nagar under tight security and only concerned personnel were allowed to perform the final rituals.

Locally transmitted cases are surfacing more frequently as the government tries to contain the pandemic of coronavirus. The doctors and paramedics working with Coronavirus patients across Gilgit-Baltistan face a shortage of proper safety kits.

Earlier, Dr. Usama Riaz, a young doctor from Gilgit-Baltistan, passed away after contracting the coronavirus disease locally. He was also working with Zaireen in Jaglot, Gilgit, passed away in an ICU at DHQ Hospital Gilgit.

Coronavirus cases in Pakistan have crossed the 1500 mark with 28 recovered patients and 16 deaths. Thousands of suspected people with recent travel history or those who have been exposed to patients await testing.

World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that there is currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

On World Water Day, Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) Pakistan shared an important new research project led by AKU-ISMC’s Dr. Jeff Tan with Professor Steve Lyon in partnership with Karakoram International University and the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat.

Generously funded by the British Academy’s “Urban Infrastructures of Well-Being” programme, the £280,000 research grant is for a project titled “Scaling Up and Transferring community-managed Rural Water Systems to Urban Settings”, Many of the problems around access to clean water in the global south are because of poor maintenance and the deterioration of water infrastructure.

The research looks at an existing Aga Khan Agency for Habitat’s Water and Sanitation Extension Programme (WASEP) in Gilgit- Baltistan which uses community-managed maintenance to the water infrastructure to help solve this problem.

The research will examine two projects and assess whether the model could be upscaled to be used in other urban settings. Gilgit-Baltistan is geographically isolated and suffers high levels of poverty.

There are currently 400 community-managed water projects in the scheme which cover over 100,000 households. By working collaboratively and bringing together researchers in economics, anthropology and engineering as well as development practitioners and other experts the project aims to identify how social, economic, cultural and technical factors all affect how community-managed water systems work.

Dr. Tan commented: ‘This is an exciting research project that not only seeks to address the pressing issue of access to water as part of the SDGs, but also brings together researchers and development practitioners from across AKU and AKDN, with capacity building and fieldwork opportunities for university students and graduates from Gilgit-Baltistan.”