Worried about the 26 December's earthquake (2)
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It is anticipated for the 26 December Asia Tsunami disaster as
"the biggest health challenges faced are the spread of water-
borne diseases, particularly malaria and diarrhoea, as well as
respiratory tract infections" by the Red Cross Federation's sen-
ior health officer Hakan Sandbladh said in Geneva, reports
CNN.com, 12/27/04.
Whether there is sufficient emergency response to the very big
magnitude disaster that happened in a comparatively large area?
The effects of such disasters are dependent usually on the fac-
tors like the population density, prevailing infrastructures and
preparations for confronting the disaster, coping capacities of
the community and community based capacities in the effected ar-
eas to confront such disaster of comparatively massive size,
emergency assessment capacities of the local authorities which
had to be conducted even before the appearance of the more
skilled international experts to help the worst effected for
their emergency survival. Also capacities for the decisions for
medical triage could be crucial! Moreover, many things are de-
pended on the emergency state level policy making etc.
I am not telling that sufficient initiative is not taken, I am
just expressing my concerns. In our experiences in the populated
and poor rural setups of Asia, the main danger doesn't include
malaria, but waterborne diseases, measles in the populated tem-
porary camps and of course, the diarrhoea and ARI are most im-
portant as in several regions, now it is winter and most of the
people usually haven't sufficient clothing and blankets for the
winter cold waves which is now prevalent. Safe disposal of the
dead bodies and setup of the ADS are the emergency of these
hours to save lives including disinfecting the polluted tube
wells with chlorine and the safe sanitations and arrangement of
safe drinking water and optimal food!
So the task is quite big and I hope, the international community
has responded in the appropriate ways! Many of our AFRO-NETS
colleagues are possibly related with such local and interna-
tional organizations, I want to attract their attentions in the
issues and not to wait for only the appearance of the conven-
tional "relief web people" (although I am sure they didn't wait
for that!) Now with the news of increasing number of deaths in
every hour, we got concerns about the effective coordination
among the service delivery agencies in the spots! I shall be
very happy if some one of our AFRO-NETS colleague can write us
something about the situations in the grounds referring informa-
tion from some of the independent sources.
Sincerely,
Dr. Shamim ul Moula
Bangladesh
mailto:shamimul.moula@gmail.com