‘Over 200 deaths occurred at Sindh IDP camps so far’

KARACHI: As the total number of people affected by the raging floods in Sindh surged to 454,693 till Sunday evening, more than 200 internally displaced people have been reported dead so far at the camps set up by the provincial health department across the province. Sixty babies have been born at the camps.

A senior health department official told APP on Monday that 202 deaths had been reported from 563 camps established for IDPs early this month in all 18 districts of the province.

Until now, more than 100,000 flood survivors were provided treatment by health staff in the affected areas and at the camps.

A total of 29,704 displaced persons were treated for a range of diseases at these camps on Sunday alone, he added.

The official said that apart from the staff at these camps, 117 mobile teams of his department were also providing health care facilities to flood victims in the affected areas.

The official stated that 4,799 cases of malaria were handled by health department teams on Sunday bringing the total number of such cases attended by them to 52,153. Another 60,928 patients with diarrhoea reported at the camps which brought the total number of such cases to 77,568.

He said that the number of patients treated for gastroenteritis was 16,740, skin diseases 85,902, heat stroke 1,993, eye infection 7,1531 (3,000 on Sunday alone) and various other diseases was 9,500.

The official said that 10,664 patients were vaccinated against Hepatitis B.

‘Pneumonia commonest ailment’

Medical teams of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplant serving in all four provinces have identified pneumonia as the commonest ailment among children.

The teams treated more than 35,000 flood affected people and found that about 50 per cent of these patients were children with pneumonia.

The other diseases affecting most of the patients were gastroenteritis, skin infection and malaria. Besides, snake-bite, scorpion-bite and heat stroke were reported in a big number. SIUT teams under the supervision of Dr Adib Rizvi had started their work at Jamsher Bund near Pir-Jo-Goth in Khairpur district and then established camp at Sujawal and Sukkur in Sindh. Mobile medical teams have also been providing medical treatment to marooned people across the province.

CDGK hosts over 29,000 survivors

Karachi Administrator Fazlur Rehman has said that the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) was hosting over 29,000 flood survivors in a better manner despite its limited resources.

“Providing food and clean water to such a large number of people on a daily basis is not an easy task but the city government is doing the job efficiently,” he said in a statement issued here on Monday.

During his visit to relief camps, the administrator inspected arrangements made for the internally displaced people, and noted that over 29,000 people had so far taken shelter at the CDGK relief camps.

He said the IDPs were being provided with comfortable accommodation, food and health facilities. He said that doctors and paramedical staff as well as necessary medicines were made available at all 29 CDGK relief camps.

“We are also making efforts to provide them with new clothes, shoes and crockery on Eid-ul-Fitr,” said the administrator, adding that the city government had also undertaken measures to set up more relief camps in the city.

School for IDPs’ children

The first temporary primary school for children of internally displaced people was inaugurated on Monday by Adviser to the Chief Minister Sharmila Farooqui on Monday.

More than 400 children were registered with the three-room primary school established at the Labour Colony, Gulshan-i-Maymar, Gadap Town.

Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler) played the key role in the establishment of the school with the aim of avoiding further disruption in the educational activities of IDPs’ children.

Ms Farooqui, speaking at the inauguration ceremony, said that children aged five and above were enrolled at the temporary school in classes 1 to V and the figure was planned to be raised to 2,000 with the enrolments up to class X.