PESHAWAR: The health department is focusing on prevention of epidemics like malaria, dengue fever, acute respiratory infections and typhoid in the flood-stricken areas as water-borne diseases are decreasing due to return of the affected people from the camps to their homes.

A health department report indicates that on Sunday a total of 47 cases of bloody diarrhoea were registered in the flood-hit districts as compared to 168 patients recorded a day before. Most of the cases have been reported in Nowshera, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Dir Lower, Charsadda and Malakand.

The number of acute watery diarrhoea cases continues to dip in the affected areas as most of the people have returned to their homes and the resolution of the problems of unhygienic condition and contaminated water has resulted in reduction of cases.

The report said that only 71 cases were registered during the last 24 hours as compared to 338 cases reported a day earlier.

Health dept focusing on prevention of epidemics

Officials said that health department was supplying water-purification tablets to the flood-affected people that were saving them from waterborne ailments. However, they said that Swabi, Malakand and Dera Ismail Khan were still reporting cases.

Acute diarrhoea is also on the decline as the province reported 2,347 patients on Sunday as compared to 2,746 cases registered on Saturday.

However, the upward trend in the acute respiratory cases continues due to the onset of winter season, which aggravates respiratory diseases.

During the past 24 hours, the health department recorded 2,840 cases, up from 2,651 patients registered on Saturday.

Nowshera, Dera Ismail Khan, Dir Lower, Lakki Marwat, Charsadda, Swabi and Swat are the highly affected districts with regard to rise in respiratory infection cases, according to the report.

It says that cases of acute viral hepatitis have also shown an upsurge in the aftermath of floods as the number of patients has surged to 49 from nine. Dir Lower, Nowshera and Dera Ismail khan are reporting bulk of the cases, it adds.

According to the report, the number of suspected typhoid cases is 157, dengue haemorrhagic fever nine, malaria 511, measles three, skin infections 1,994 and eye diseases 590. The province didn’t report any snakebite case during the last 24 hours. So far, 71 snakebite cases have been reported in the flood-hit districts.

The report says that the number of flood-related injuries has also declined. The health department repowered 169 cases of injuries on Sunday as compared 198 cases reported a day before.

Officials said that the next challenge before the health department was prevention of epidemics in the flood-impacted areas where people were prone to malaria, typhoid, dengue and respiratory infections. They said that those ailments were likely to witness upward trend due to the change of weather.

The health department has started efforts in collaboration with other line departments to cope with the situation.

“In addition to WHO and Unicef, the health department is collaborating with the tehsil municipal authorities, public health engineering and district administration to put brakes on epidemics in the flood-stricken districts. The government has already released emergency funds for dengue control and procurement and supplies are being made to the district offices,” said officials.

They said that a total of 256 health facilities were damaged due to the incessant rains that would be reconstructed as many donor organisations pledged to assist the health department in that regard.

“A World Bank-sponsored human capital investment project, launched in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa two years ago, is one of the donors to help the department in reconstruction efforts,” they said.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2022