The United Nations has warned the humanitarian situation in flood-ravaged Pakistan was expected to get worse, a day after establishing an air bridge to deliver aid to victims.
The UN’s warning on Tuesday comes as more than 33 million people in Pakistan have been affected by the flooding, which has been brought on by record monsoon rains amplified by climate crisis.
The floods have caused more than 1,300 deaths and washed away homes, businesses, roads and bridges.
The UN’s World Health Organization said more than 1,460 health centres had been damaged, of which 432 were fully wrecked, the majority of them in the southeastern province of Sindh.
More than 4,500 medical camps have been set up by the WHO and its partners, while more than 230,000 rapid tests for acute watery diarrhoea, malaria, dengue, hepatitis and chikungunya have been distributed.
Such diseases are already circulating in Pakistan, alongside Covid-19, HIV and polio, and “now all these are at risk of getting worse”, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva.
“We have already received reports of increased number of cases of acute watery diarrhoea, typhoid, measles and malaria, especially in the worst-affected areas.”
Jasarevic said it was still difficult to get to areas hit hard by the floods, which have submerged a third of the country — an area the size of the United Kingdom
