Doctors Without Borders responds to likely spread of water-bornediseases in Pakistan

GHN News Editor - "With the threat of more rainfall and new floods still looming, MSF
continues to provide affected and displaced people with basic
necessities to help them maintain a minimal standard of living and
prevent the spread of diseases."

Flooding began a month ago, uprooting thousands of people and creating

serious medical conditions that are being responded to with greater aid
from Doctors Without Borders,  as disease threats grow.

Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is helping in
the affected areas, expanding its services in locations where thousands
of people are cut off from vital assistance.

To help prevent the threat of disease, MSF is increasing its
distribution of clean water  in larger towns and remote villages located
throughout the Charsadda, Swat, Nowshera, Lower Dir, and Dargai
districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.   They report they will, in
the coming days, start water and sanitation activities in Sindh and
Baluchistan provinces as well.

Teams are also assessing water supply needs throughout those areas impacted by the flood.

"One of the big worries is some families are using home pumps where
water is still contaminated, and this can lead to waterborne diseases,"
says Muhammad Shakeel, a member of MSF.

It’s worrisome that some families with small pumps at home have started
using their water source again, explained Muhammad Shakeel, a me's water
and sanitation team.  He goes on to say, "We will continue to provide
safe water until we can put in place a system to check if the water is
good enough for daily use."

More than 14,675 relief kits and 4,855 tents have been distributed  in Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
MSF reports.  Kits include such necessities asbuckets, soap, laundry
soap, a tooth brush, a jerry can, hygiene items for women, a towel,
plastic mugs, kitchen utensils, plastic sheeting, tents, a mattress, and
water purification tablets.

Health promotion workers are also going throughout the country educating
people about health risks and showing people how to use water
purification tablets.

At an emergency feeding program set up before the floods, MSF is
currently treating at least 300 children younger than 5 years old for
severe malnutrition.  It has also had to respond to an increasing number
of patients with acute watery diarrhea.  The worry is the outbreak of
widespread cholera.

The floods have become so perilous that in some northern reaches of
Sindh province, the rising water levels of the Indus River have driven
90 percent of people in areas such as Usta Muhammad, Dera Allar Yar, and
Ganakha from their homes. In southern Kashmir and southern Sindh,
floods have also forced families to seek refuge on higher ground, on
embankments along the main canals, railway lines, or roads where MSF is
now delivering relief aids.

More than 110 international staff are currently working alongside 1,200
national staff in pre-existing and flood response programs in Pakistan.

MSF has been providng aid to Pakistani nationals and Afghan refugees
from armed conflicts since 1988 and accepts no government funding,
relying instead on private donations.