By Imtiaz Hussain
KHAIRPUR: Five newborns have died in the past 24 hours in Khairpur after contracting chickenpox, exposing serious gaps in neonatal care and isolation facilities in the district’s hospitals.
Health experts said the outbreak had been spreading rapidly across tertiary hospitals and rural health units where neonatal intensive care and proper isolation wards were lacking. Families were reported to have moved infected infants to private medical centres after public hospitals failed to provide adequate treatment, but the babies did not survive.
Child specialist Dr Zulqarnain Bozdar said neonatal chickenpox often occurs when mothers contract the infection shortly before or soon after delivery. Despite routine maternal vaccinations, the infants developed symptoms within days of birth and later died from the infection.
Dr Aftab Ahmed Lashari said chickenpox, caused by the varicella-zoster virus, is highly contagious and can be particularly severe in newborns. He said the illness could be prevented through maternal vaccination and post-exposure treatment with varicella-zoster immunoglobulin (VZIG), but the treatment was not routinely available in the district.
Officials warned that the absence of isolation wards and critical care facilities was increasing the risk of viral transmission among children in hospitals, and called for urgent improvements in neonatal healthcare infrastructure.
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