Dr Hana Mahmood wins WOWPK Award 2021

RESPIRE PhD student, Dr Hana Mahmood, has won the Women of Wonders (WOW) Award 2021 for the Health category in Pakistan, for her work on COVID-19.

Dr Hana Mahmood

Hana is a medical doctor currently carrying out a PhD within RESPIRE and is the director at Neoventive Solutions, Pakistan. She is a technical working group member for various health related strategies in Pakistan, including with the Ministry of Health, and has experience of working with multiple UN agencies and donors.

Two of Hana's RESPIRE projects focus on COVID-19. She leads a team exploring community perceptions of COVID-19 and public health measures to address the disease in Pakistan. The study will help relevant authorities to develop robust communication mechanisms, facilitating the communication of accurate and meaningful information to the public.

Hana is also involved in a study which is developing and testing a reliable diagnostic tool to detect COVID-19 from chest X-rays. Standard diagnostics for COVID-19 (e.g., PCR testing) can be prohibitively expensive and not always an option in low- and middle-income countries. However, the majority of the local medical centres will already have access to X-ray machines. The results of this project would speed up diagnosis of COVID-19 and referral of patients for the correct healthcare. This should lead to faster recovery times, better quality of life for patients, and reduce the number of deaths associated with COVID-19 infection.

Read more about Hana's studies and research at the bottom of the page.

Women of Wonders Pakistan (WOWPK) Awards

The WOWPK Awards honours women who have contributed tremendous economic development to Pakistan, and created impact at large.

The annual ceremony aims to highlight and celebrate the accolades of up-and-coming inspirational female talent, as well as help create a new generation of female role models and a pipeline of future leaders.

For all her work on COVID-19 and in the field of healthcare, Dr Hana Mahmood was awarded the WOW Award for the Health category, acknowledging her outstanding progress and determination in the field and her contribution to the public health of Pakistan.

I am extremely thankful for having been given the opportunity to win this award. It came after a long struggle and hard work in the field of public health, and through family support and my determination as the backbone. I will say that, although there is no short-cut to success, hard work does pay off. This award is only the beginning to an even harder journey that I must take.
Dr Hana Mahmood