PESHAWAR, Nov 16: The World Health Organisation has urged the government to take immediate measures to prevent outbreak of epidemics in quake-hit areas. “Insufficient human resources is a big problem which needs to be looked into immediately”, said WHO Operations Medical Officer for NWFP and Fata Dr Saeed Akbar Khan on Wednesday.

He said that 57 per cent of the basic health units (BHUs) and rural health centres (RHCs) in quake-hit areas needed postings of medical officers and this situation had been recorded before the natural calamity hit these districts.

He said the WHO had offered its services in the areas of training and capacity building of the health personnel because its main concern was impending outbreak of epidemics.

The UN official said that the WHO could hire staff for these health units on medium-term basis to fill the posts.

He said that out of 188 BHUs in these areas, 122 in Mansehra, Battagram, Abbottabad, Shangla and Kohistan happened to be without doctors. Likewise, he said, of the total 17 RHCs, three had no medical officers.

Dr Khan said that they had also planned to put in place disease early warning system (DEWS) in the affected areas with a view to checking spread of epidemics.

“The WHO would also impart training to health professionals in the affected areas on DEWS. Once the training is complete, the doctors would be able to know about outbreak of an epidemic”, he added.

The WHO had also issued guidelines to the executive district officer (EDOs) health in the affected areas regarding diagnosis and management of tetanus, diphtheria, meningitis and diarrhoea, he added.

“In this connection we have also offered training to doctors and health workers in their respective areas so that they can spread authentic information about epidemics and people are not harassed by rumours”, Dr Khan added.

Furthermore, the UN health agency had also provided one emergency medical kit each to Shangla and Kohistan districts that could cater to the needs of 10,000 people for three months, he added.

“As most of the survivors may face psycho-social problems the WHO has called a psychiatric ailments advisor who is busy in giving training in Islamabad to doctors from the affected areas of the whole country”.

Besides, he said, the WHO had also pledged provision of ambulances, coordination among the UN agencies to avoid duplication of activities, establishment of a referral system and mobilisation of human resources.

He said availability of potable water was highly important in the quake-hit areas. Hundreds of thousands of litres of clean water was required by the survivors, he said and added that a joint team of the WHO and Unicef had gone through the reports regarding outbreak of diarrhoea in Balakot and found them to be false.