Tahir Shamsi

Tahir Shamsi was a Pakistani professor of medicine, researcher and pioneer of bone marrow transplant in Pakistan. He worked as a clinical hematologist and bone marrow transplant physician. He established the National Institute for Blood Diseases (NIBD) and was the director of the Stem Cell Programme at NIBD as well. He died after a brain hemorrhage in Karachi on 21 December 2021. He was a renowned personality of Karachi and a man of great wisdom. He was known for his affable temperament, for being intrinsically fair, for showing respect to young and old alike, for treating his administrative staff as honoured colleagues, and for championing partnerships and teamwork. He fitted well into the definition of a hero—more appropriately, an ‘unsung hero.’ He enriched the country’s health landscape by designing and implementing several groundbreaking interventions. He developed the notion of national health programmes which were neither federal nor provincial, but in which both federal and provincial governments participated and took decisions through consensus, thus giving impetus to creating health policies with a national outlook. He accorded special attention to EPI interventions, leading to Pakistan winning GAVI support for cold-chain and the introduction of new vaccines. He adopted the intricate framework of DOTS as a national program and led federal & provisional partnerships in this field, earning recognition from the ' STOP TB' global coordination board. He initiated and participated in Roll Back Malaria and HIV counseling sessions and treatment programs, incorporating them into national policy. The first-ever integrated women's health program was launched during his tenure, illustrating his dedication to improving women's and children's health. He also participated in meetings with various world & religious leaders, such as General Parvez Musharraf, Hamid Karzai, Saddam Hussein, Sayyid Hassan Khomeini, and Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al Said. He was a writer and a historian as well, and authored several books on Balochistan and its culture. He was awarded the Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 2002 for his services to the nation.