Floods: 650,000 unborn babies at high risk of contracting ailments

LAHORE:The First Impact Overview of 2022 torrential flooding in Pakistan warned on Monday that nearly 650,000 unborn babies, expected to be delivered in the next three to five weeks, are at high risk of contracting lifelong ailments as a consequence of several waterborne, vector-borne and airborne diseases.

According to the Asia & Oceania Post-Doctoral Academia (AOPDA) impact overview report, released here, the diseases these babies could contract soon after birth include leptospirosis, lymphocytic chorio-meningitis (LCMV) and ailments related to the cell mediated immunity (CMI). The overview said that unprecedented rains and torrential flooding had swamped more than two-thirds of rural areas of Pakistan, leaving over 6.4 million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Of these people, over 3.1 million are children and nearly 650,000 are unborn babies. The “Disaster’s Epidemiological Susceptibilities and Pandemic Outbreak” assessment report, named Aurangzeb Hafi’s DESPO Appraisal, warns of the increasingly worsening situation in the hexa-effect aftermath of the high tides from the heavy monsoon of 2022.

A UNICEF statement, issued recently, says: “More than three million children are at increased risk of waterborne diseases, drowning and malnutrition due to the most severe flooding in Pakistan’s recent history.”

The DESPO assessment alert already warned quite timidly of the upsurge of waterborne, vector-borne as well as airborne diseases, including fatal leptospirosis, followed by the toxic outbreaks due to contaminants, carried by the floodwater. “Many of these indicators were markedly specified in the post-disaster cursors of the DESPO assessment report of 2014 floods also, but no lessons were learned from the previous calamities,” regrets DESPO Principal Investigator Prof Aurangzeb Hafi.

The floodwater in many areas bears high toxicity concentrations and strong indications suggest the presence of arsenic along with a considerable number of other toxins coming from industrial sewers. And if, the situation prevails for another 10-15 days, it would be emerging as a host to a number of hazardous ailments, especially among pregnant women and newly-born babies. The report says that impaired absorption of water, electrolytes and minerals causes impaired formation of Micelle + C complex, which in turn results in multiple mal-absorption complications.

“Childbirths, deliveries or pregnancies are not the kind of a phenomenon, at all, that can be postponed or delayed for the disasters to be over - or even be ‘put on hold’ for the policy-works to be completed. Whatever is to be done is to be done right now. It is high time that the policymakers, politicians, NGOs and the public at large come forward for raising voice for those who could not raise it for themselves, the voiceless, the unborn babies, the newborns and the disabled. Prof Aurangzeb Hafi has long been working for the issues concerning the pre-birth disability-prevention-centred subject matters in cataclysmic situations. He was the prime investigatory head of CRRA-CRRM (Child Retardation Risk Assessment & Child Retardation Risk Minimization) projects of the Asian Tsunami of 2004.