August 8, 2003	Friday	Jumadi-us-Sani 9, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 7: United Nations agencies in Pakistan have feared outbreak of diseases, like measles, malaria, hepatitis A and B, skin disorder, as well as snake-bites cases in the flood- affected areas of the country.

While apprising donors of the situation, a UN team said the risk to life from these diseases was very high and at least 100,000 bed nets were required urgently to prevent the outbreak of malaria and hepatitis B. In order to overcome the gap in relief supplies, an appeal for assistance was also made to donors.

The meeting was informed that UN agencies in Pakistan were up-scaling emergency humanitarian relief assistance in the flood- affected areas.

UN resident coordinator Onder Yucer also appealed for enhanced cooperation and coordination in the relief operations, logistics, monitoring of distribution and stressed the need for directly sending emergency supplies to the districts.

As many as $450,000 worth of supplies and logistical support was being provided by various UN agencies, including Unicef, WFP, UNDP, WHO and UNFPA. The assistance includes food supplies from WFP for 240,000 persons, 630 tents from UNDP/OCHA, medical supplies, water purification tablets and jerrycans from WHO, UNFPA and Unicef.

Dr Bile, country representative of the WHO, in a meeting said: “in such situations the health problem begins to surface after the immediate crisis has receded and thus a plan-of-action for three months needs to be drawn up.”