The Burmese health services are overwhelmed by the influx of survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which hit a week ago one of the country, and the worst is feared if international aid does not arrive quickly, says an expert UNICEF, Osamu Kunii. At the hospital in Bogalay, one of the cities of the Irrawaddy delta hardest hit by the cyclone, the doctors work tirelessly to accommodate and treat each day 5000 sick and wounded, said the head of the UN Fund for childhood. They are exhausted. They work for hours and hours and they should really help adds Kunii, in charge of the Health and Food of the UN agency in Burma, reached by telephone in Bangkok. Many survivors have been injured in the back and with debris of all kinds uprooted by winds near 200 km h.
Many cases of dehydration and diarrhea are also reported, especially among children, raising fears of epidemics. You see people drink contaminated water because they have nothing (…) We must prepare for the worst case scenario – the increase in cases of cholera, malaria and dengue Kunii said. Officially, the hurricane killed more than 23,000 dead and 37,000 disappeared, but some experts put the figure at 100,000 dead. Over a million and half people are homeless. SHORTAGE Hospitals lack bandages, thread for sutures.
There are always patients that can not handle properly, simply because there are not enough doctors and medicines. It took eight days to the military junta sends Doctors in the delta but that is not enough, and international aid should no longer delay, said the head of Unicef, which has been the experience of the December 2004 tsunami around the Indian Ocean. But the junta, which called for bed nets and water purification pills, does not seem willing to let foreign aid workers distribute aid in the disaster areas. UNICEF has already distributed 15,000 kits first aid and plans to send 20,000 more. It took about 26 million dollars over the next six months to improve sanitary conditions in the region, including the drinking water system. For the World Health Organization (WHO), poor access to drinking water and the emergence of infectious diseases raise the greatest concern..