International Paediatric Association offers support for saving lives of flood-hit children

The International Paediatric Association (IPA) and Asia Pacific Paediatric Association (APPA) have offered support to the Pakistan Paediatric Association (PPA) for saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of children affected by the devastating floods in Pakistan.

“The current president of the IPA, who is from Turkey, and the president-elect from India are very much concerned about the situation and have offered their support for saving lives of children in the flood-affected areas. We have written a formal letter to the IPA as well as APPA, and asked them to support us in cash and in kind so that medical camps and field hospitals could be established and medicines could be procured for children in the flood-affected areas,” PPA Secretary General Dr Khalid Shafi told The News on Saturday.

He said the IPA president from Turkey Dr Enver Hasanoglu and president-elect Dr Naveen Thacker had met PPA senior member Prof Iqbal Memon in Istanbul a few days back and offered their support for saving the lives of flood-affected children as they were getting sick due to water-borne diseases, including diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid as well as malaria and dengue.

Dr Shafi said the global paediatric associations were told about the alarming situation prevailing in the flood-affected areas of Pakistan where hundreds of thousands people had to live in the open and suffer hunger and disease.

“Over 33 million people have been affected by this disaster while 1,314 people have died, 800,000 livestock have perished and the number of houses damaged is over 436,000. Sindh, Balochistan and KP are the most affected and total 80 districts have been declared calamity-hit. The government data shows that 600,000 people had been reported with various illnesses at medical camps,” the PPA secretary general said in his letter to the IPA.

The letter stated that women and children were more prone to unfriendly conditions, and only in Sindh, around 132,485 cases of acute respiratory diseases, 49,420 suspected cases of malaria, and 149,551 diarrhoeal diseases had so far been reported among the flood victims while 142,739 others had skin infections. “The Pakistan Paediatric Association is providing medical relief to the flood-affected women and children,” the letter read.