Each week, the World Health Organization Health Action in Crises in Geneva produces information highlights on critical health-related activities in countries where there are humanitarian crises. Drawing on the various WHO rogrammes, contributions cover activities from field and country offices and the support provided by WHO regional offices and headquarters. The mandate of the WHO departments specifically concerned with Emergency and Humanitarian Action in Crises is to increase the effectiveness of the WHO contribution to crisis preparedness and response, transition and recovery. This note, which is not exhaustive, is designed for operational use and does not reflect any official position of the WHO Secretariat.
PAKISTAN
Assessments and Events
- Approximately 2 million people are currently displaced in NWFP's Peshawar, Mardan, Nowshera, Charsadda and Swabi districts, raising the total population in these districts to more than 10 million. Overall, 90% of the IDPs are living with host families while the remainder in scattered in more than 20 IDP camps.
- The health care system's capacity to continue providing life-saving care remains of concern given the massive influx of people. Hospitals and other facilities are under extreme strain and struggling to counter multiple health threats, such as diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, measles, traumas and mental distress.
- Between 20 and 26 June, 179 surveillance sites distributed among the five affected districts reported 77 681 consultations. The main health concerns were acute respiratory infections and acute diarrhoea for children five and under. Two cases of acute watery diarrhoea among IDPs were confirmed and confined in Mardan district. Further information is available in the.
- According to government officials, more health workers, particularly female doctors and lady health workers, are needed to address the needs of IDPs. Other urgent needs include:
- Lab, blood bank and operating theatres supplies in secondary level hospitals;
- Ambulances for referral services;
- Increased implementation/reporting for the Disease Early Warning System;
- Strengthening of warehouses for appropriate storage of medicines.
- Returnees and populations remaining in conflict zones have limited access to health care as roughly 60% of facilities in the Swat Valley and other affected areas are reportedly damaged, looted or destroyed. Private health care providers, who were responsible for 60-70% of services in some areas, have stopped.
Actions
- WHO is supporting the MoH in guiding and coordinating emergency activities. WHO is setting standards, building capacity, identifying gaps and, where necessary, filling them as provider of last resort.
- WHO is buying ambulances to improve the referral of patients to secondary and tertiary level hospitals as well as providing medicines and building warehouses in Islamabad, Peshawar and Mardan to brace the health sector for outbreaks of communicable diseases ahead of the upcoming monsoon season.
- WHO donated emergency health kits and supplies to Médecins du Monde, CORDAID, Merlin and Frontier Primary Health Care as well as 2100 packets of oral rehydration salts to the National Commission for Human Development mobile units in Mardan district. Since August 2008, WHO has provided enough medicines and supplies to treat almost 800 000 people.
- The Health Cluster supported the establishment of 12 diarrhoea treatment centres in the five affected districts and WHO donated cholera kits to Mardan and Charsadda hospitals.
- WHO and health partners are conducting multiple health assessments to identify urgent needs and gaps, such as in Buner and Dera Ismail Khan districts. In collaboration with the Peshawar Institute of Prosthetic and Orthotics Sciences, WHO also completed a survey on the needs of persons with disabilities in five camps. The survey identified 1153 persons, 25 of whom were provided with prosthetic devices in Swabi district's Shah Mansoor Hospital.
- WHO and health partners have received funds from the USA, Italy and DFID. ECHO has pledged funding to WHO. According to Relief Web's Financial Tracking system, as of 3 July the Health and Nutrition Clusters had received 25% of funds requested in the revised Pakistan Humanitarian Response Plan.