ISLAMABAD, 18 October 2005 — Pakistan has started vaccinating people against deadly diseases in its quake-ravaged north, but there are no signs of epidemics breaking out there, Health Minister Mohammad Naseer Khan said yesterday.
The government had also sent teams to the devastated areas of Kashmir and North West Frontier Province to fumigate the rubble covering bodies in hopes of preventing any, he said.
“We have got a lot of people from the religious ministry and the CDA to pull them out and bury them respectfully,” he said in an interview with Reuters, referring to the Capital Development Authority, Islamabad’s town planners.
“The immunization teams have been in full flow in the region for the last three days” vaccinating people against deadly diseases which often ravage survivors of major natural disasters, Khan said.
“We are reaching out to the people and vaccinating them against tetanus, against cholera,” he said.
Officials were also watching for signs of other diseases caught from polluted water, a serious danger with sewage systems ripped up by the Oct. 8 quake.
But, so far, there were no signs of epidemics following a quake which left nearly 40,000 people confirmed dead and 65,000 injured, tolls expected to rise significantly as rescuers reach areas high in the hills not yet surveyed.
“To date, I think, Praise to God, we have, fortunately, no signs, but we are constantly monitoring because that is the key thing till we clear off the debris and bury the bodies,” Khan said.
As Khan was speaking to Reuters at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad’s main hospital, ambulances brought in more people injured in the quake, which struck hardest at Pakistani Kashmir and adjoining areas of North West Frontier Province.
Scores more were being treated in the corridors of the overcrowded hospital, many of them with severe head or spinal injuries, Khan said.
The quake left the health care system in Pakistani Kashmir in ruins. More than a dozen government-run hospitals and many private clinics were destroyed. Many doctors and nurses were killed.
Khan said the government had dispatched 200 doctors to Kashmir, 34 international medical teams were operating in the quake zone and 17 field hospitals had been set up.
“We are overwhelmed by the support within the country and overseas. I think it was tremendous and forthcoming,” he said.
The government has appealed to foreign doctors to fly in to help out Pakistani colleagues working tremendously long hours in hospitals overwhelmed by the flood of injured.
It has also appealed for helicopters, the only way to get aid to remote mountain villages quickly and bring back the severely injured.
Japanese Choppers Join Relief Effort
Japan yesterday became the fourth foreign country to operate helicopters in Pakistan’s desperate relief effort after its earthquake, with two choppers heading out with medical supplies for survivors.
The two helicopters, carrying a handful of Japanese troops, left Chaklala Air Base near Islamabad at around 3:15 p.m. bound for Batagram in North West Frontier Province, a Japanese embassy official said.
