While Pakistan continues to mobilize all the means at its disposal to help the tens of millions of people affected by “the worst floods in its history”, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned this Wednesday, August 31, of the health and food costs suffered by the more than 33 million affected. The Organization assigned emergency level 3, the highest, to the catastrophe that is plaguing the country.
Pakistan, the eighth most vulnerable country in the world to climate change, according to the Germanwatch 2021 risk index, has been hit by the worst floods in years with at least 1,100 deaths, 33 million people affected and damages worth 10,000 million. Dollars.
The warnings about the seriousness of the consequences of the monsoon rains that have devastated the country for three months do not stop.
On Wednesday, August 31, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Ghebreyesus, assigned the situation in Pakistan to emergency level 3 (the highest in the Organization), which implies the highest level of mobilization of the UN agency.
.@QUIEN you have classified the flooding in #Pakistan as the highest level of emergency & released $10 million from the Contingency Fund for Emergencies (CFE) to treat the injured, deliver health supplies & prevent outbreaks. We thank our CFE donors for enabling us to respond rapidly. https://t.co/E5Kt78hUcd pic.twitter.com/ZdEhoSpV1g
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) August 31, 2022
“According to our internal classification system, the WHO categorized the floods in Pakistan as a grade 3 emergency (…) which means that all three levels of the Organization are involved in the response: the national and regional offices as well as the headquarters,” the WHO chief told a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
Tedros Ghebreyesus explained the need for this classification due to the domino effect of floods, with their repercussions on health and other areas.
“Damage to health infrastructure, insufficient health personnel and shortages of health supplies are disrupting health services, putting children and pregnant and lactating women at greater risk,” he warned.
“Pakistan was already facing health threats such as Covid-19, cholera, typhoid, measles, leishmaniasis, HIV and polio. Now the floods have brought new epidemics of diarrheal diseases, skin infections, infections of the respiratory tract, malaria, dengue, etc.”, he added.
A major risk of spreading epidemics
And the WHO chief’s concern about the spread of epidemics is also shared by Pakistani health authorities.
Doctors in flood-affected areas said they had started treating patients traumatized by the disaster, but were increasingly seeing people – including children and pregnant women – with diarrhoea, skin infections and other highly contagious illnesses.
The World Health Organization announced that it has begun to provide assistance to the Pakistani authorities. In a statement, the agency said it was also working to increase surveillance for diseases such as acute diarrhea and cholera to prevent further spread.
“WHO is working with health authorities to respond quickly and effectively on the ground,” Palitha Mahipala, the Organization’s representative in Pakistan, told the AP news agency.
“Our main priorities now are to ensure rapid access to essential health services for the population affected by the floods, to strengthen and expand disease surveillance, prevention and control of outbreaks,” he said.
Furthermore, according to the UN Population Fund, approximately 650,000 pregnant women need maternal health services to ensure a safe pregnancy and delivery.
“Up to 73,000 women expected to give birth next month will need skilled birth attendants, newborn care and support,” the UN agency said in a statement.
Tens of millions of people now depend on humanitarian aid
According to daily surveys conducted by the Army and published by the National Disaster Management Authority, more than half of the country’s districts are affected by flooding. None of the four provinces (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab) have been spared and, according to the Minister of Climate Change, a third of the territory is under water.
The South Asian nation is suffering “the worst flooding in its history,” in the words of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Millions of people have lost everything and depend for survival on humanitarian aid delivered by truck or helicopter. On Wednesday, more international aid arrived with cargo planes from China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
International organizations are also mobilizing, and Save the Children, for example, has started its relief operations in the hard-hit village of Qaim Khan Vadyo in the Shikarpur district of Sindh province. There, the organization distributes food packages, tents and water purification tablets.
The relief items include a food package that can last up to a month for a family of six or seven people, Imran Ali Shah of Save the Children Pakistan told the AP.
Although many remote villages remain beyond the reach of relief efforts, some 460,000 people have managed to reach camps set up in the regions. In Sindh province, between 3,000 and 4,000 refugees arrive every day in Karachi, the country’s largest city.
The Government estimates that more than a million homes have been destroyed while infrastructure, roads and bridges have been devastated. Although the rains stopped on Wednesday, August 31, the truce may be temporary, since the precipitation could resume in the coming days.
After this, Pakistanis will need patience to return to a semblance of normal life and most of them will have to face the coming winter months in tents and makeshift shelters.
There are not only health consequences
The consequences of the floods on food are also to be feared: thousands of hectares of cultivated land have been washed away, fields of crops such as wheat and rice are under water, and the price of vegetables and fruits has skyrocketed.
This disappearance of part of the crops “will have a strong impact on food prices, when inflation was already the number one problem,” Subhan Ullah, an economist at the University of Birmingham, told the Reuters news agency. Inflation was over 20% before the start of the monsoon season.
“The floods have particularly affected the regions of Punjab and Sindh, considered Pakistan’s food baskets, and shortages are beginning to be felt in the country’s markets, causing prices to rise,” Reuters reported. “We will have to import the fruits and vegetables, which is another increase,” added Subhan Ullah.
Finally, the impact on the country’s industry and economy will be significant, since 90% of the cotton fields have been destroyed. Cotton is used to supply the textile sector, which represents more than 60% of exports.
With AFP, Reuters, AP
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