Pakistan: After the floods, threat of mosquito-borne diseases

ARACHI, 20 October 2010 (IRIN) – An outbreak of dengue fever has hit the Pakistani coastal city of Karachi, with five reported deaths out of 1,000 confirmed cases, triggering a run on shops selling mosquito nets.

“People get very irritated when we tell them we have run out; some are quite desperate,” said Sadiq Hameed, a shopkeeper at a store selling bedding items. But a meeting of experts on 16 October hosted by the National Institute of Health in the capital, Islamabad, warned that although dengue was a risk, malaria, another mosquito-borne disease, posed a much more serious threat, especially in flood-affected areas. Guido Sabatinelli, the World Health Organization representative in Pakistan, told IRIN that even at the start of the malaria season there were “300,000 suspected cases” nationwide. The millions of people who have lost their homes and livelihoods to the floods are finding it difficult to protect themselves against either malaria or dengue – both potentially deadly diseases. “We know malaria is a risk, but what are we expected to do when we have no roof to sleep under, no proper cots to tie nets to and a situation where dirty water stands everywhere?” said Saghir Muhammad, 40, who returned two weeks ago to his village near the southern city of Thatta. He told IRIN his four-year-old son had a fever, which doctors thought could be malaria; they were awaiting the results of blood tests. The hot, humid weather makes it hard to keep children covered throughout the night; sleeping out in the open means that insect repellent quickly evaporates. “Of course [the pools of stagnant] water should be drained away, but we have no equipment and it is not easy anyway to get rid of so much water,” a health department official in Thatta told IRIN. …