MITHI: Tharparkar Deputy Commissioner Dr Shahzad Ahmed Thaheem has cautioned that this summer may become too hot for the desert people if drought conditions persist and requested NGOs to immediately provide 11,500 cans of water to help fight an outbreak of diarrhoea and other waterborne diseases.

Since majority of desert people were forced to drink contaminated water of wells, it was causing diseases and it was equally becoming challenging for the government to provide safe drinking water to all people, said the DC while chairing a meeting of the officials of health and revenue departments and representatives of NGOs.

He said that besides getting help from local NGOs he had already requested the Wing Commander of Rangers to help him in setting up medical camps in remote villages to treat the ailing children and elderly.

He hoped that Thar would soon be declared as calamity-hit in light of summary sent to the chief minister by Mirpurkhas commissioner a few days ago.

Dr Thaheem urged officials of the health department and PPHI to ensure the best healthcare facilities were provided in health units to save lives of children and warned them of dire consequences if they failed to perform their duty.

In view of fears about a hot summer ahead, he said the months of May, June and July were very crucial if it did not rain in Thar. He had also requested director general of health to provide chlorine and other medicines to all health units to prepare them for feared epidemics, he said.

Dr Shaikh Tanweer Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Health and Nutrition Development Society, warned that if steps were not taken on a war footing to provide adequate food to pregnant women the situation could become very dangerous in coming days because women already faced acute malnourishment.

Ms Anis Haroon, provincial coordinator of the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), urged both the Sindh and the federal government to act upon the recommendations about Thar situation which the NCHR submitted to them in a report a few days ago.

She said the situation in the arid region was getting worse by the day but the government was still in a state of denial. It should now open its eyes and do the needful without wasting more time, she warned.

A member of a Thar commission formed by Sindh government on the directives of Sindh High Court disclosed that the commission had completed its comprehensive report on deaths of children, condition of hospitals and water issue in Thar. It would be submitted to court and Sindh government on April 24, he said.

Three more children die in Thar

Three more minor children, two-year-old Sodhi, nine-month-old Altaf Hussain and Marvi, 13 months, died of waterborne diseases at Mithi Civil Hospital on Thursday, raising the death toll of children in Thar since Jan 1 to 300.

But DHO Dr Arjan Das insisted only 155 children had died so far at government hospitals mostly in the civil hospital.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2016