Believe it or not, the relief camps in Muzaffarabad are so unhygienic that you would feel your breath stifling in your stomach if you happened to visit there.
A trip arranged by the Unicef and the Environment Ministry for the media provided an opportunity not to just attend the briefing on environmental issues, but also to visit some of the relief camps to see for themselves indifferent attitude of the government and the apathy of the people living in those camps.
The situation is so bad in these camps that even doctors and relief workers have cautiously warned of an outbreak of hepatitis, typhoid and other diseases.
Though the Unicef and the local government claimed to have restored clean drinking water to the inhabitants of relief camps by installing water treatment plants in different areas, however, this remains a question as to how the water was being transported into the camps and was it sufficient for the inhabitants as treatment plants were installed at quite a distance.
A lady doctor working in the relief camps on the condition on anonymity told Business Recorder that medical teams in the area had successfully treated some cases of diarrhoea, but feared that in case of its spreading as epidemics, it may lead to more deaths, especially among the children.
She said that these teams have repeatedly expressed fear and issued SOS call of breakout of gastrointestinal tract infections and other diseases.
Though the number of reported cases are fewer, presently, but these could touch sizeable figures if preventive measures were not taken on time. The medical teams working in the areas rapidly report diarrhoea, cholera and scabies.
Dr Saqib who has been working in the university ground camp since the October 8 earthquake told Business Recorder that hygienic conditions in the camps were very poor and could lead to diseases like dysentery, amoebiasis and cholera.
"Scabies is another problem in this area and it is widely spreading. A large number cases of scabies can be seen in every camp," he said.
Lack of sanitation facilities in the tent villages was resulting into pollution, as there was no proper arrangements for disposing of human waste.
The lady doctor said that the medical teams in the area had successfully treated existing cases of diarrhoea, but she feared that in case of its spreading as epidemics it might lead to more deaths, especially among the children.
She warned that contaminated water could also cause Hepatitis A, typhoid and paratyphoid yet she said she had no data of such cases available with her.
On the other hand, the NGOs have underlined the importance for creating awareness among the inhabitants of relief camps given the reason that these people were in habit of open defecation.
Dr Saqib said donor agencies were providing relief goods and medical services, but there was a need to make proper arrangements for sanitation facilities in all the camps in the area.
"We are educating people as to how they should keep themselves clean in cold weather, and set up latrines of 8 feet hole, but the major problem was increasing influx of displaced people with the start of winter and snowfall on the mountain tops," he said.The aid workers in the areas said that with the increasing number of people joining these camps it could be predicted that hygienic conditions would further deteriorate if steps were not taken immediately.
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