ISLAMABAD, Nov 7: The United Nations Fund for Population (UNFPA) has deployed its mobile service units in quake-hit districts to extend health services with a focus on safe pregnancy and childbirth.

According to a press release, UNFPA has district offices in Mansehra and Muzaffarabad.

It said staff members reacted immediately after the earthquake, arranging shipments of medical supplies from Islamabad and helping establish emergency health services.

Dr Syed Arif Hussain, district programme officer in Mansehra, provided all kinds of medical assistance to the district hospital where hundreds of patients were pouring in and they did not have enough supplies.

More mobile units of the agency were brought in from other districts hundreds of kilometres away and were moved into remote areas as soon as roads were cleared. The press release said nine mobile units were now working in the two hard-hit districts, each serving about 250 patients a day. Most units are staffed by a female doctor, a nurse/midwife, and male and female health attendants.

They offer women antenatal care and treat gynaecological conditions, besides addressing a wide range of ailments affecting children, men and women who survived the earthquake.

UNFPA has also sent a new shipment of emergency reproductive health equipment and supplies to Muzaffarabad and Mansehra. These include 20,000 individual kits for clean home deliveries to be given to women who are six months pregnant, and kits for 10,000 clinical deliveries by doctors and trained midwives.—PPI