ISLAMABAD: Doctors in the Pakistani city of Multan have urged residents to exercise caution amid a heatwave this week, with the administrator of the city’s main hospital saying the heatwaves in recent days have led to an increase in the number of patients.
The Punjab Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) warned last week that the southern districts of Punjab – Multan, Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan – would be hit by a heatwave from May 21 to 27. Provincial authorities have ordered schools to be closed from May 25 to 31 due to the extreme heat.
Heat waves are becoming more severe and frequent as a result of climate change. These summer events are caused by slow-moving high pressure systems that cause high temperatures to last for long periods.
“Patients are coming in with mild symptoms as the temperature has already risen recently, approaching 48 or 47 degrees Celsius,” Dr Farooq Ahmad, medical director at Multan’s Nishtar Hospital, told Reuters.
“In the summer, we face two problems: one is extreme heat and the other is diarrhea season, both of which basically lead to dehydration, loss and so on.”
Health experts are advising people to take extra precautions against the heat and not go outside unnecessarily.
“We are doing our best to keep people informed when they come to our stores. [to the hospital about the dangers of heat stroke]”The hospital’s deputy director, Dr Ayub Qazi, told Reuters.
“We are telling them not to leave the house unnecessarily and to cover their heads when they do go out.”
Pakistan was hit by its first heatwave of 2015 in June, when temperatures reached 49 degrees Celsius in the south of the country, causing around 2,000 people to die from dehydration and heatstroke, mainly in the southern port city of Karachi.
In Pakistan, where increased heat exposure and increased heatwaves have been identified as one of the main impacts of climate change, people have experienced extreme heat and seen some of the highest temperatures in the world in recent years. One of the 10 countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, the South Asian country of over 241 million people has also been hit by unseasonable heavy rains, flash floods and droughts in recent times.
Extreme heat caused by climate change can lead to illnesses such as heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke and hyperthermia, and can exacerbate certain chronic diseases, including cardiovascular, respiratory, cerebrovascular and diabetes-related diseases, as well as lead to acute events such as stroke and hospitalization for kidney disease.
According to the Global Climate Risk Index, nearly 10,000 Pakistanis died and the country suffered economic losses worth $3.8 billion as a result of climate change between 1999 and 2018. In 2015, a heatwave in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and capital of Sindh province, killed 120 people.
In 2022, torrential monsoon rains caused the worst floods in Pakistan’s history, killing nearly 1,700 people and affecting more than 33 million people — a staggering figure roughly equivalent to the population of Canada. Millions of homes, tens of thousands of schools, and thousands of kilometers of roads and railways have yet to be rebuilt.
