The Government of Pakistan has promulgated the Hospital Waste Management Rules 2005. These rules are in place and the Federal and Provincial Governments are to implement these rules. However, it is felt that there is a need of assistance in the implementation process. To this end, the Ministry of Health, Government of Pakistan in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Center for Environmental Health Activities has planned to implement a project on healthcare waste management in Pakistan in order to facilitate the process based on evidence based strategy.

The main objective of the regional project is to develop a comprehensive National Plan on Health Care Waste Management, which will address many issues like legal and institutional framework, technical and financial issues, needed treatment and disposal facilities and capacity building activities on healthcare waste management as well as suggested arrangements for implementing and evaluating the implementation of national plan. In this connection, a two-day inception workshop on the dates February 2 - 3, 2007, was held at the Health Services Academy, Islamabad, on the subject of the development of a national plan for healthcare waste management. A team from WHO/CEHA (Jordan) was also there to facilitate the program.