Crisis in the
Region
Pakistan
WHO steps up emergency response to Pakistan
crisis
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In Jalozai IDP
camp, a WHO Officer organizes educational sessions on best
practices for water storage. |
10 JULY 2009 ¦ ISLAMABAD - The World Health
Organization is ramping up its health response to Pakistan's
humanitarian crisis by buying ambulances and millions of courses of
additional medicines, in addition to building new warehouses to
improve health care for the approximately 2 million internally
displaced people (IDP) and for the many more hosting them in
northwest Pakistan.
"A massive logistics effort is needed to deliver
and safely store life-saving medicines and equipment to affected
areas," said Dr Bile. "Equally important is the need to strengthen
the system referring patients by ambulance from lower to higher
levels of care."
Read the photo essay
Press
release
BC-AS--Pakistan-WHO-Refugees/460
WHO: Pakistani refugees risk running out of drugs
RYAN LUCAS 30 June 2009
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Photo
WHO/Jan Brouwer
Provincial Secretary of Health Dr Sohail briefing ADG Dr
Laroche and WR representative Dr Bile on 29 June 09 at Yar
Hussein IDP camp in Swabi District of NWFP. |
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SLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Refugee camps in Pakistan risk running
out of essential medical supplies within "two to three weeks" if
donors don't deliver more funds soon, the World Health
Organization's top crisis official warned Tuesday.
Shortages of medicine and other supplies heighten the risk that
epidemics of cholera, malaria and other infectious diseases could
threaten people who fled the army's ongoing assault against Taliban
militants.
About 2 million civilians have been uprooted from their homes in the
Swat Valley and surrounding districts since the government launched
its offensive in April.
Cash-strapped Islamabad is heavily dependent on Western donors to
provide for the refugees. The U.N. has appealed to the international
community for some $530 million to address the problem - $37 million
of which is earmarked for basic health needs.
But Eric Laroche, the World Health Organization's assistant
director-general for humanitarian crises, said the international
community was failing to deliver the needed funds. So far, money
delivered and pledges from donor nations covered only 27 percent of
the $37 million, he said.
That shortfall presents a challenge in meeting the refugees' basic
health needs, particularly if more funds do not arrive soon.
"Within two to three weeks we won't have any more essential drugs to
be treating the people in the camps," Laroche said. "It is not
normal, and I don't even find it acceptable."
Hundreds of thousands of refugees have found shelter in refugee
camps south of the war zone, while the majority of them have moved
in with relatives or strangers.
Laroche, who visited a camp sheltering 31,000 people on Monday, said
the conditions were generally "not bad" but warned that the coming
rainy season - which usually runs from July through late August -
raises the threat of an outbreak of infectious diseases.
He noted that "many of the camps are located in areas that are
likely to be flooded," and that an intense rainy season would likely
bring "diseases such as acute diarrhea that is going to create a lot
of malnutrition, cholera, malaria - so we need to be prepared for
that."
He said that in some instances "there are 50 people living in one
room, men sleeping outside, so all the conditions for an epidemic
are gathered here."
Another problem is the lack of female doctors and nurses to treat
women refugees, the vast majority of whom are conservative Pashtuns.
"That is really a problem because as you know with Pashtuns you ...
need to be gender sensitive, and Pashtun women will not be treated
by men and there we have a major problem," he said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Step up health care delivery in IDP hosting communities
ISLAMABAD 27 June, 2009
Urgent support is
needed to immediately fill the alarming and widening gap between increasing
health needs and available health service provision in communities hosting
an acute increase in numbers of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in the
North West Frontier Province.
"Hundreds of
thousands of people are vulnerable and living in a high risk environment,
underscoring the need for a well-funded, strategic and coordinated response
by the health partners to mitigate these risks," said Dr Khalif Bile, WHO
Representative to Pakistan.
To strengthen
health systems in this crisis, there is an urgent need to fill the funding
deficit (only 27% of the Humanitarian Response Plan funded thus far) to
provide gender and culturally sensitive health services.
Press release (27 June, 2009)
WHO to survey the needs of people with disabilities in displacement camps
in Pakistan
 ISLAMABAD,
Pakistan -- World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with Institute
of Pakistan Orthotic and Prosthetic Sciences (PIPOS), Peshawar is starting a
detailed need based assessment survey for the Person With Disabilities (PWDs)
residing in the camps.
A representative of WHO informed that the initial assessment has shown that
the presence of both physical and sensory (hearing and visual) disabilities
who have not received any type of rehabilitative services since the onset of
the disability.
He further told that WHO Disability and Polio Rehabilitation team responded
promptly to a news published regarding, Akhter Bibi, a poor and helpless but
dedicated mother of three disabled children, who carried her 14 year
daughter, Rangeena, with disabilities on her back and covered 15 hours
distance on her foot.
Akhter Bibi, with tears in her eyes, looking at her smiling daughter,
sitting on the wheel chair being pushed by her brother and sister, told that
this wheel chair means a world for her, as now her daughter, instead of
crawling on the ground all the time shall be moving around.
All what the desperate mother wanted was a wheel chair for her daughter who
neither can move her hands nor feet. A wheel chair modified according to her
physical disability was delivered to the child by WHO team.
A journey from crawling to moving around Rangeena age, 14 is suffering from
Cerebral Palsy (brain damage due to decrease supply of oxygen) with mental
retardation, spasticity and advanced fixed deformities of the upper and
lower limbs. She cannot walk or move around and have no control over her
bladder and bowl. Her two sisters are also suffering from mild mental
retardation.
2 June 2009: WHO calls for an
immediate funding of the health cluster activities to ensure
adequate provision of essential health services and life saving
medicines to the 3 million displaced in North West Frontier
Province.
WHO declaration:
Arabic
- English
- French
A journey from crawling to
moving around
(The News International, 24 May 2009)
Since
the summer of last year, 556,000 people have fled from their homes
due to the conflict in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. In late
April 2009, the fighting escalated leading to an additional rapid
and massive displacement of over two millions Internally Displaced
Persons (IDPs) leaving humanitarian service providers scrambling to
meet the needs. The majority of the IDPs – former and new comers –
are distributed among 11 districts of this Province and are either
staying with host families or in rented accommodations while a
smaller proportion is staying in 26 IDP camps.
The
already over burdened and under resourced health system is
struggling to provide the necessary health care services to the
target population. Timely interventions are needed to avoid an
increase morbidity and mortality among these in-country forced
migrants. In support to the Ministry of Health, the World Health
Organization as the health cluster lead, along with cluster
partners, is ensuring that:
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a coordinated response is put in
place to ensure delivery of health services to the most
vulnerable;
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the communicable disease
surveillance and outbreak response system is expanded and is
robust for timely detection of disease, and prevention of
outbreaks;
Stocks of necessary
medicines and supplies as requested by the Federal Ministry of
Health .
Health situation reports
Situation report 3, 19 May
2009 (Arabic )
Situation report 2, 16 May
2009 (Arabic -
French)
Situation report 1, 13 May
2009 (French)
Health Cluster Bulletin
Bulletin 6, 3 July 2009
Bulletin 5, 23 June 2009
Bulletin 4, 18 June 2009
Bulletin 3, 8 June 2009
Bulletin 2, 3 June 2009
Maps
Organizations
providing health services in IDP camps NWFP Province
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