Express Tribune Editorials 3nd August 2026

Controlling rabies

No one should die of rabies in 2026. It is among the deadliest diseases known to medicine, yet it is also among the most preventable. That Sindh has already recorded 19 rabies deaths this year – with the latest victim an eight-year-old boy from Badin – is therefore an administrative failure, not a medical one. The state continues to fail victims long before they reach hospital.

The tragedy is that the province is not unfamiliar with the disease or the measures needed to prevent it. But for years, Sindh's response has been characterised by grand announcements followed by inconsistent implementation. New anti-rabies centres are inaugurated and assurances are repeatedly given that medicines are available. Yet families continue to travel from one health facility to another searching for treatment. Medicines locked away in tertiary hospitals offer little comfort to patients bitten hundreds of kilometres away. The recurring shortages are especially difficult to justify because demand is hardly unpredictable. Sindh records hundreds of thousands of dog-bite cases every year. The government knows where the hotspots are and has years of data to estimate the quantities of vaccines and immunoglobulin required. The government must therefore look to build a robust supply chain capable of meeting a foreseeable demand. At the same time, the province continues to lose ground in controlling the source of the disease. Stray dog populations have expanded across urban and rural Sindh. Municipal authorities often resort to culling after a particularly horrific attack, only to abandon the exercise once public attention fades. Such campaigns have repeatedly failed because they treat the symptom rather than the cause.

Countries that have successfully eliminated human rabies have done so by vaccinating dogs on a large scale while strengthening surveillance and improving access to post-exposure treatment. There is little reason Sindh cannot pursue the same path with equal commitment.

No space for pedestrians

Being on the roads of Pakistan - as a driver, rider or pedestrian - can be a fatal gamble. Punjab alone tells the story in numbers: Rescue 1122 recorded over 36,000 road accidents just in the month of January this year, with 463 people killed and more than 17,000 seriously injured. By May, these figures had only grown, with 434 deaths and more than 23,000 injuries. Pedestrians – though not the only casualties in these figures – make up a striking share of them.

Talk to anyone who actually walks these streets, and the landscape becomes less ambiguous, the violence almost expected. Pedestrians are routinely pushed onto roads meant for cars, because service lanes have instead been swallowed up by parked vehicles and motorcycles weaving through traffic. It's not that the people here don't know how to cross a road safely, it's that the roads were never built with them in mind. The numbers also back this up, with pedestrians making up around 41% of all road deaths in Pakistan in 2021 - noticeably higher than the regional average.

There is no dearth of practical solutions to this problem in Pakistan. There is only deferment on implementation. Instead of pouring more money into wider roads that just invite faster driving, city planners need to start treating footpaths and proper crossings as essential. Even where these already exist, many are poorly maintained with broken steps and lack of proper lighting. There is barely any road safety awareness regarding such signs and crossings in the country, which is also a major factor in these accidents.

Enforcement can't just mean handing out fines, it also means holding contractors accountable for encroached footpaths and keeping underage riders off the roads. Until our cities are designed for the people and not just for their cars, law enforcement will only be able to do so much to curb road accidents.

The terror matrix

Pakistan is facing a profound security crisis as militant violence hit a sharp peak in July 2026. During this deadliest month, over 112 security personnel were martyred while resisting insurgent forces nationwide. Concurrently, intensified counterterrorism efforts led to the elimination of 401 terrorists. This surge, alongside a persistent civilian death toll averaging dozens of casualties monthly, underscores relentless cross-border infiltration from the western frontier. Compounding the crisis, these hostile actors exploit internal safe havens by collaborating closely with groups like TTP and BLA. Neutralising these active sleeper cells demands an unyielding and robust kinetic strategy.

The primary theatre of action remains Balochistan, where the overall death toll spiked by 241%, rising from 109 in June to 372 in July. Similarly, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa recorded 154 deaths in July compared to 75 in June, marking an increase of over 100 per cent. The prevailing pattern of terror consists of suicide bombings and the ramming of explosives-laden vehicles into security checkposts or police stations. The fact that law enforcement personnel and peace committee members are the prime targets highlights the mindset of this terror nexus, which aims to dent the resilience of these brave individuals. Furthermore, attacks on civilians - including Chinese engineers and CPEC developmental staff - indicate that foreign conspirators intend to derail the growing momentum of geo-economics in the region.

Encouragingly, Pakistan remains resilient and fully possesses the capability to uproot this threat. Furthermore, there is an ongoing public discourse regarding the complex socio-economic, political and strategic factors that have allowed terrorism to proliferate. This heightened public awareness, paired with unflinching confidence in the armed forces, provides an ideal framework for success. The immediate priority is a synchronised roadmap that integrates political will with military capability to dismantle terrorist networks decisively. There is no turning back for the nation until absolute peace is realised.