ISLAMABAD ( WNAM REPORT ): The Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (MoNHSR&C) and National Institute of Health (NIH), officially launched the Pakistan Wastewater Environmental Surveillance (WES) Strategy and National WES Genomics Dashboard, marking a major milestone in strengthening the country’s public health surveillance and outbreak preparedness.
The launch meeting was inaugurated by Federal Minister for Health, Syed Mustafa Kamal, who reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to strengthening disease surveillance systems and emphasized that wastewater surveillance is a strategic investment for early warning, timely outbreak detection, and evidence-based public health decision-making. The meeting was attended by Secretary Health Muhammad Aslam Ghauri, Additional Secretary Laeeq Ahmad, Joint Secretary Syed Salahuddin Ahmed, Dr. Muhammad Salman, Chief Executive Officer, National Institute of Health (NIH), Dr. Afreenish Amir (NIH), Dr. Rehan Zafar Paracha (NIH), Dr. Imran Nisar (Aga Khan University), Dr. Furqan Kabir (AKU), and Dr. Vincent Pang (Duke-NUS Centre for Outbreak Preparedness, Singapore).
The Federal Minister highlighted the importance of strengthening wastewater treatment systems across Pakistan as a critical measure for protecting public health. He emphasized that wastewater environmental surveillance can serve as an effective early warning system for detecting disease outbreaks and supporting timely public health action. He underscored the importance of strong collaboration between the Government, academia, and international partners to further strengthen Pakistan’s public health surveillance systems. The Minister called upon technical experts to provide practical, evidence-based recommendations from a national perspective to support the continued expansion and sustainability of the National Wastewater Environmental Surveillance System.
In his remarks an event at NIH, Dr. Muhammad Salman, Chief Executive Officer, NIH, highlighted that the launch of Pakistan’s Wastewater Environmental Surveillance (WES) Strategy marks a significant milestone in strengthening the country’s public health surveillance and outbreak preparedness. He emphasized that the WES dashboard will enable early detection of priority pathogens, support evidence-based public health decision-making, and enhance Pakistan’s capacity to prevent and respond to emerging public health threats through a coordinated One Health approach.
Dr. Afreenish Amir, NIH, presented the progress of the national WES initiative and highlighted several key achievements, including mapping of WES stakeholders across sectors, prioritization of 33 pathogens for wastewater surveillance, identification of WES sampling sites, development of sampling site selection tools and metagenomics data analysis pipelines, capacity building in wastewater sampling and genomic technologies, and establishment of the National WES Dashboard at NIH. She further highlighted that pilot implementation across 14 sites in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, and Karachi has generated significant findings, demonstrating the value of wastewater surveillance as an early warning tool for public health.
