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BANGKOK: Desperate survivors of the Myanmar cyclone
are facing serious
health worries one week after the disaster, with everything from
disease to snakebites putting some 1.5 million people at risk, aid
groups say.
Those still alive are battling
myriad problems—dirty water, lack of food and long exposure to the
sun—and experts warn that without immediate relief, the death toll
caused by Cyclone Nargis will keep rising.
“The three basic needs are
still not being met for hundreds of thousands of people—food,
clean drinking water and emergency medical goods,” said Paul
Risley, a spokesman for the UN’s World Food Program in neighboring
Thailand.
“Continued exposure to the sun
for people who have lost their homes and the roofs on their houses,
is critically dangerous, especially for the children and the
elderly,” he said.
The regime has blocked
journalists and international aid workers from coming in to assess
the situation on the ground, making it difficult to get a true
picture after the storm, which the government says left 60,000 dead
or missing.
But aid experts experienced in
similar disasters know that certain kinds of problems are on the
horizon, especially with huge swathes of the country still
underwater, and time is running out to prevent them.
“we are really worried about
the kids because they’re particularly susceptible to waterborne
diseases,” said James East, Thailand spokesman for aid group World
Vision. “You get dysentery, typhoid and diarrhea, and people begin
to lose a lot of body liquids.”
The majority of the annual 1.8
million deaths from waterborne diseases are children.
The regional spokesman for the
UN’s emergency relief arm, Richard Horsey, said there were already
reports of diarrhea outbreaks.
“We need to mount a major
relief operation if many lives are not to be lost,” Horsey said in
Thailand.
“There are reports of 150,000
people stranded and unable to move in the southwest delta,” he
added. “We’re also getting reports of many people making it out
of the affected areas, which is a sign that not enough assistance
and food stocks is getting through.”
Meanwhile, the UN children’s
fund UNICEF said Myanmar’s authorities had agreed to a vaccination
campaign in the near future—but not just yet.
“We want to get safe water and
sanitation first, but measles is a deadly disease in a situation
like this,” UNICEF spokeswoman Shantha Bloemen said. “We usually
try to do injections as quick as possible.”
An aid worker from the Merlin
charity who is based in the hardest-hit southern delta said she
faced a Herculean task.
“Malaria and dengue fever which
are endemic to the area are set to increase. Deadly snakebites are a
growing issue as everyone heads for safety,” she said. “Power
and communications are very limited, making it very difficult to
operate. Most people here are still in a state of shock. It’s a
daunting task.”
--AFP
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