Chicken pox broke out in many areas in Khairpur as more than 100 children contracted the disease, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Sunday.
District Health Officer Barkat Ali constituted a 9-member committee to deal with the situation.
The District Health Officer formed Isolation Wards in all the district and taluka hospitals of the Khairpur district.
The most affected areas include Kanab, Buzdar Wada, and Garhi Bridge. The DHO said that a team of senior doctors was also dispatched to the
Earlier on March 12, 2026, five newborns died 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.
Reporter: Waqar Hussain Mangi