Pakistan Kashmir faces disease after quake

Malaria and other diseases are breaking out in Pakistani Kashmir where health services are in ruins after an earthquake wrecked hospitals and killed many doctors, a senior health official said on Tuesday.

Corpses and sewage had contaminated the river Neelum, the main source of drinking water in the provincial capital Muzaffarabad, officials said.

"Health services have totally collapsed here and Malaria, gastroenteritis and water borne diseases have already spread in worst-hit areas of the city," said Khawaja Shabir, provincial director-general of health.

He said the situation was only likely to worsen because of the polluted water and the many dead bodies still stuck under buildings that collapsed in Saturday's 7.6 magnitude quake.

The United Nations warned of risks of cholera and pneumonia.

Shabir was working in his office when the quake struck and spent three hours trapped under rubble before being saved. He said 80 percent of his staff died and his office destroyed.

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It results in profuse, watery diarrhea.

Causes, incidence, and risk factors

Cholera is an acute illness characterized by watery diarrhea. The toxin released by the bacteria causes increased secretion of water and chloride ions in the intestine, which can produce massive diarrhea. Death can result from the severe dehydration brought on by the diarrhea.

Cholera occurs in epidemics when conditions of poor sanitation, crowding, war, and famine are present. Endemic areas include India, Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, and more recently, South and Central America, and Mexico. The infection is acquired by ingesting contaminated food or water.
For more information check: Cholera

"We're helpless in handling it on our own as right now we don't have a single hospital left in Muzaffarabad, no medicine, no paramedic staff, nothing," he said.

U.N. officials said as many as one million people had been left homeless by the quake, which officials said may have killed as many as 40,000 people. They said two million children were among perhaps four million affected by the disaster.

The World Health Organisation said in a statement that a massive health relief effort was needed and would be part of a U.N. appeal being launched on Tuesday in Geneva.

"We need to coordinate a massive health relief effort to ensure people get urgent care and to prevent a bad situation getting even worse," said Alan Alwan, the WHO's newly named representative for health action in crises.