Dr Zahida Sarwar, MD

Health & Public Sector Senior Advisor

A leading authority in Public Health in Pakistan, Dr. Zahida Sarwar has more than 28 years of diverse experience in public and private health. Her expertise includes program management, financial and budget control, public health initiatives in communicable and non-communicable diseases, team building & leadership, project proposal development, execution and monitoring.

Her last appointment before Rayn was as Technical Advisor for the Hepatitis Control Program Punjab, Government of Punjab. Dr. Zahida has worked in almost all preventive health programs of Punjab, namely MNCH program, EPI, LHWs and TB DOTS, as Deputy Provincial and Provincial coordinator. She led the development of the Punjab Health Sector Strategy 2012 and 2019, numerous social welfare reforms. She launched a unique digitized program for disposing of infectious hospital waste across all DHQ and THQ hospitals, now being followed by other provinces. Her past associations include senior roles at WHO, UNICEF, DFID, CIDA & World Bank.

Dr. Zahida has attended several international conferences and workshops representing Punjab and Pakistan on public health globally, including Vancouver, Geneva, Thailand, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Malaysia, Srilanka, Nepal, etc. In addition, she is a visiting faculty member at Punjab University and teaches Health Promotion, communication and health information system.

The Government of Punjab awarded Dr. Zahida the ‘Fatima Jinnah Award in recognition of her services in Public Health in 2014. She holds an MBBS degree from Nishar Medical College in Multan, Pakistan and a Master’s degree in Health Management, Planning & Policy from Nuffield Institute for Health, Leed University in the UK.