The Outreach and Research Programme of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health has ten community-based field sites across Pakistan (including four in Karachi) and focuses on research for betterment of women and child health. The Department has a Nutritional Research Laboratory as well as an Infectious Disease Research Laboratory that cater to the needs of its research projects. It has well-acclaimed work to its credit both at the national and international level.
The department is conducting a study to assess and analyze the burden and determinants of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) mortality in infants in the urban areas of Karachi, Pakistan which includes (Rehri Goth, Ibrahim Hyderi, Bhains Colony, Ali Akbar Shah). RSV is a respiratory pathogen with potentially high disease burden in developing countries. This will be a two-year mortality-based surveillance study in order to obtain more accurate estimates of the burden of severe RSV infection and associated deaths in infants in the urban areas of Karachi.