IRIN
PAKISTAN: Sick quake survivors stream into city
11 November 2005


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United 
Nations]

LAHORE, 11 November (IRIN) - Beds reserved for quake victims at the 
giant Mayo Hospital and other medical centres in the eastern Pakistani 
city of Lahore are quickly filling up once more.

Patients suffering from cholera, diarrhoea and other related ailments, 
stretch out on beds, intravenous lines feeding them with the liquid and 
drugs they need to stay alive. Many seem hollow-eyed, badly dehydrated 
and haunted by this new disease threat.

Some days ago, bed space had begun to open up in Lahore hospitals, as 
those with trauma injuries from the quake shifted out to camps or to the 
homes of relatives. Now, the situation is once more grim. At hospitals 
closest to the disaster-hit areas, in Abbotabad, Murree, Muzaffarabad 
and elsewhere - from where more and more patients are being sent to 
Lahore - doctors state "a new crisis has begun".

This time, patients are coming in not with gaping open wounds, gangrene 
or broken limbs, but with acute diarrhoea, cholera, measles, skin 
diseases and other infectious illnesses. Many of the worst afflicted are 
children, with dehydration aggravated by the lack of clean drinking 
water in many areas.

"I have brought my son here from Muzaffarabad. He became ill three days 
ago and cannot eat or drink at all," said Jameela Begum, holding her 
three-year-old son in her lap as she sat on a lawn near Lahore's 
Services Hospital. The child had been given an intravenous drip a few 
hours ago, to pump fluid into his frail body.

"We have nowhere to go. My husband has gone with the older children to 
find some of our relatives who live here and see if they will take us 
in," said Jameela. The 8 October quake killed at least 86,000 people and 
injured more than 100,000.

She explained they had opted to bring their child to Lahore, as 
conditions at the camp they had been based in on the outskirts of 
Muzzafrabad were "really bad and we feared the other children would get 
sick too". She added that clean water was not available, there were "too 
few" toilets and food was running short.

Other patients coming to Lahore also hope they can get better and 
receive more prompt care at city hospitals, with doctors in 
quake-affected areas again overwhelmed by the new cases of dangerously 
ill people coming in by the day. They also say rain, that began 
Thursday, has made conditions at emergency camps still worse.

"The second disaster has started. Cholera and diarrhoea are rampant. 
These sicknesses will take many lives," said Dr Fayyaz Khan, a volunteer 
doctor who returned to Lahore from Balakot a day ago to try and find 
drugs to return with and persuade other volunteers to join depleted 
staff at field hospitals.

"We need more saline drips, more anti-diarrhoeal medication. Lots of 
antibiotics, preventive vaccines and more sanitation facilities," he 
told IRIN. Many volunteer doctors working in quake areas have returned 
to routine jobs, believing the worst is over. But those still there 
believe a new calamity, caused by disease festering in the squalid 
camps, still hovers menacingly over all quake-hit areas.

New reports from Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the Balakot area in 
North West Frontier Province (NWFP) state hundreds have been hit by 
ailments such as diarrhoea. On Thursday, the World Health Organization 
(WHO) said hundreds in Pakistan-administered Kashmir had "acute 
diarrhoea" and their teams were now investigating whether this was an 
outbreak of cholera.

At least 750 people are reported to have been afflicted by diarrhoea at 
the emergency camp University Ground in Muzaffarbad alone, with almost 
all major relief agencies expressing growing concern over the situation.

Widespread rains in many affected areas Thursday and forecasts of more 
wet weather ahead have added to the fears of an epidemic. "Rain would be 
a disaster. Diarrhoeal illness and rain go together and that would 
aggravate matters," Rachel Levy, WHO emergency coordinator, said.

People coming into Lahore say poor sanitation conditions at emergency 
camps in the north have added to possibility of disease. "There is human 
waste out in the open, drinking water is in short supply, the living 
conditions are filthy - naturally people are getting ill," said Muhammad 
Rafiq, who came to Lahore with his two small children, both suffering 
diarrhoea.

"They need a clean, warm place to live. They will just get sicker and 
die up there [in the quake zone]. I have lost two children already when 
their school fell in Balakot. I must save these two," said Rafiq, 36, a 
mason who with his wife, Abida, and two children, was searching for a 
place to live at one of the camps set up in Lahore, based at Raiwind, 
the airport area and other locations.

More people are expected to follow, attempting to escape disease and 
worsening weather conditions in all affected areas. Hospitals in Lahore 
are gearing up for a new influx. Doctors in the city warn that unless 
there is an improvement in the situation at quake camps within days, the 
toll of post-quake deaths caused by disease will begin to rise as more 
and more fall victim over the weeks to come.


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2005


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