KARACHI: Senior health professionals from various non-profit organisations stated on Monday that the majority of areas with limited access to potable water and food were infected with waterborne infections, including acute watery diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid, and skin conditions. They described the situation in the province’s flood-affected areas as “extremely critical.”
The specialists recalled that since March of this year, there has been an increase in diarrheal diseases in Sindh and that severe rains have made the health issues much worse. Their claims are supported, among other things, by data from the provincial health department, which indicates that Sindh reported the largest number of instances of watery diarrhoea and dysentery among children this year—193,048—in August alone. In July, 117,999 instances in all were reported.
“The government’s assistance efforts are mostly lip service, and the majority of people still lack access to food and clean water. If prompt aid is not given to them, they will perish from disease and famine, according to Dr. Usman Mako, president of the Pakistan Medical Association-Sindh chapter.A number of people, including his family, lost their homes, while others had two to three feet of standing water at their locations, according to Dr. Mako, who was able to move his family out of Sukkur before the flood hit his hometown.
There are very few dry places to seek refuge. How to drain out water is a mystery to most people. The population, especially children, is being severely affected by illnesses like gastroenteritis, he said.
He claimed that because of the scale of the destruction, few NGOs were unable to complete the task. Only the government and the army are able to enter places that the floodwaters have blocked off.
The general secretary of the PMA-Karachi, Dr. Abdul Ghafoor Shoro, called the situation “extremely dangerous” and said that government aid had not reached rural areas.
