Immensely contagious Coronavirus disease was imported in Pakistan and became health emergency concern in no time. Pakistan, being a resource limited nation has encountered worst transmission dynamics and received public, social, economic challenges. Pakistani officials responded sufficiently to outbreak. However, community transmission became an emergent threat and proportion of mortalities became exponential.  Hence, Pakistan was scantily prepared to respond to an overhanging hazardous outbreak. This study comment on response of Pakistani government to Coronavirus disease, sheds light on challenges faced during the Covid-19 pandemic and concluded by highlighting concept of preparedness and providing some recommendations.

Introduction: An outbreak of pneumonia was observed in December, 2019 China which was named as Covid-19 (Corona virus disease 19) by WHO. The first case of Covid-19 appeared in Pakistan on Feb 26, 2020. Pakistan has responded well to the cause and had taken timely decisions. During Covid-19 depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances have been revealed among population of various countries. This study was carried out to determine the mental health status of general population in Karachi during Covid-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: This was a web survey based cross sectional study. The data was collected through a self-administrated questionnaire which was developed on Google forms. The questionnaire collected information regarding participants demographics, their knowledge about Covid-19, their attitude and practices towards it and the last part was used to assess psychological impact and mental health status of the participants using IES-R (Impact of event revised) score and DASS-21 (Depression, anxiety and stress score). Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and independent t-test were used as tests of significance. Results: Majority 229(76.3%) of the participants were aged between 15-25 years. Social media was the main medium through which people 124(41.3%) learned about Covid-19. Evaluation of knowledge regarding Covid-19 infection showed that majority correctly knew about transmission sources and sign/symptoms of Covid-19 infection. Analysis revealed that majority of the people 167(55.7%) had normal depression subscale score (0-9), 196(65.3%) had anxiety scores within normal range and 198(66%) did not report stress and had normal scores. While assessing the psychological impact of Covid-19 we found that 221(73.7%) had normal IES-R score and had mild impact of Covid-19. Conclusion: Our study showed that people of Karachi were well aware about Covid-19. Majority of respondents did not report depression, anxiety, stress and serious impact of Covid-19 on their lives showing their optimism and great will to fight against the pandemic. Keywords: COVID-19, Psychological impact; Mental health.

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Aim: This study was aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding refractive error correction surgeries among undergraduate medical students. Study Design: In this study cross-sectional study design was used. Duration and Place of Study: The study was conducted amongst the undergraduate MBBS students studying at Dow Medical College, Karachi. The duration of study was seven months (August, 2019 till February, 2020). Methods: A sample size of 189 was calculated for the study with confidence level 95% and confidence limit 5%. Data was collected through a validated self-administered questionnaire which was divided in five subsections used to gain information regarding participant’s demographics, knowledge, attitude and practices regarding refractive error surgeries. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS V.22. Results: In our study 189 students with a mean age of 21±1.8 years were included. Among the participants 112 (59.3%) had refractive errors. Glasses were used by majority 76 (67.9%) of participants for visual correction. Use of refractive error correction methods at all times was reported by 72 (66.7%) participants. Majority of respondents 142 (75.5%) had heard about surgery being used for correction of refractive errors. A large number of students 117 (66%) refused for surgery and fear of the outcomes was one of the reason for this refusal. Conclusion: We found that majority of the participants were aware about refractive error correction surgeries yet most of them showed unwillingness for these procedures. This negative attitude must be changed to positive in order to enhance the practice for these procedures.