care Prof:
After floods in northwest Pakistan have “already killed up to 1,200 people” and forced two million from their houses, authorities are now concerned about disease spread, the Related Press reports. “To avert the looming threat of spread of waterborne diseases, particularly cholera, we have dispatched dozens of mobile medical teams inside the affected districts,” said medical official Sohail Altaf. Altaf stated no concrete situations of cholera have been reported within the country but “fear of an outbreak is high,” and patients with “stomach issues from dirty water” are being observed in medical camps (Brummitt, 8/2).
AlJazeera.net reports that Save the Young children doctors inside the area have treated “over 600 individuals inside the last two days and they are seeing a good deal of situations of diarrhoea, fever and skin infections,” in accordance with Sonia Cush, the group’s director of emergency response (8/1). Officials warn that “a lack of drinking water” is spreading disease, according to Agence France-Presse/News24, in an post that quotes yet another well being official, Syed Zahir Ali Shah, who said, “We estimate that about 100,000 people, mostly children, have been hit by cholera and gastro diseases” inside the region (8/2).
An aerial survey of the one of many worst-affected provinces “showed dozens of villages had merely been washed away,” the BBC reports(8/2). “The United Nations and the United States announced Saturday that they would present $10 million dollars every single in emergency assistance. The U.S. has also provided rescue boats, water filtration units, prefabricated steel bridges and thousands of packaged meals that Pakistani soldiers tossed from helicopters as flood victims scrambled to catch them,” the AP continues.
“The [Pakistani] government says it has deployed thousands of rescue workers who’ve so far saved an estimated 28,000 individuals and distributed standard food items,” in accordance with the AP. The army has also sent 30,000 troops and “dozens of helicopters, but the scale with the disaster is so vast that several residents said it seems like officials are doing absolutely nothing. Thousands more folks in the province remain trapped by the floodwaters” (8/2). BBC reports that the army predicts the “initial search and rescue operation will take up to 10 days” and rebuilding could take 6 months or far more.
BBC also reports that rescuers are “struggling to reach 27,000 folks still stranded” by the floods (8/2). “Part of the primary north-south motorway into the [affected] region was reopened Sunday,” permitting aid supplies in and prompting individuals to flee the region, “before reportedly closing once more.” In an IRIN post, a U.N. official estimates that 50 bridges have been swept away inside the country (8/1).
Several hundred individuals protested the “government’s response” to the disaster within the north-western city of Peshawar, “where homeless survivors crammed into temporary shelters overnight,” the BBC adds (8/2). Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari “faced criticism for proceeding using a trip to Europe” (Shakir/Sharif, 8/2).
This data was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Household Foundation. You are able to view the whole Kaiser Every day Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for e-mail delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.
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