KARACHI, Pakistan, June 23 —Doctors here expect deaths from polio, smallpox, malaria and other diseases to increase sharply as the result of new Government strictures on public health spending and the importation of drugs.

The situation is complicated in Pakistan's major cities, notably Karachi, by contaminated drinking water.

Yesterday the Pakistan Medical Association sent a telegram to the Government in Islamabad urging that polio vaccine be imported immediately from the Soviet Union or Canada to curb an expected epidemic in Karachi.

The telegram said that a large number of polio cases had been brought to Karachi hospitals in the last few days and it noted that no free vaccine was available.

Free Vaccinations Halted

The authorities in Karachi, which, with more than three million inhabitants in Pakistan's largest city, stopped providing free polio vaccinations three years ago.

While parents are being urged to have their children vaccinated, polio vaccine in Karachi is currently available at only one drugstore, where the cost is more than $6 a bottle—far beyond the reach of most families.

Military spending in Pakistan has increased steadily over the years, especially in the last four months. Appropriations for health, education and other public services have been reduced correspondingly.

In the last six weeks, the prices of medicines in Karachi have increased from 30 per cent to 100 per cent. Chloroquine, a common suppressant of malaria symptoms, has increased in price by 100 percent, ac cording to medical authorities.

The entire malaria‐control program in Sind province, of which Karachi is a part, has been slashed. Last year 65 per cent of its staff was dismissed, and this week it was announced 50 more employees would lose their jobs.

Malaria is endemic through out Pakistan. It is usually at its worst during the summer months. Refugees from strife torn East Pakistan now living in squatter camps in West Pakistan have contributed to the spread of various epidemic disease here, notably smallpox.

More than 100 smallpox victims have died in Karachi area hospitals in the last few months.

Doctors and others who have sampled water in the Karachi area have found it contaminated and have demanded action by government authorities, who have agreed to investigate the problem.

Pakistan's lack of doctors and trained medical workers especially affects women. Most Pakistani women are devout Moslems unwilling to undergo examination or treatment by male doctors. Each of the few women doctors in the country must therefore theoretically at tend to many thousand female patients.

“We could do more with more money,” one health worker said. “But when a choice must be made between military priorities and public health we often end up with little or nothing.”