Lack of clean drinking water spiking diseases in flood-hit Pakistan

Islamabad: Aid workers warn a lack of clean drinking is causing an increase in diseases in Pakistan, as the death toll from devastating floods crosses 1,200, the media reported.

Access to clean water was the biggest problem for those trying to find food and shelter, said medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the BBC reported.

The government met on Saturday to assess the scale of the floods which have submerged a third of the country. At least one in three of the victims of the flooding are said to be children.

Some 1.4 million homes had been destroyed in record record monsoon rains which have affected more than 33 million people.

The country’s top disaster management official said that 2022 had brought some harsh realities of climate change for Pakistan, the BBC reported.

“This year we did not witness a spring season… we faced four heatwaves which caused large-scale forest fires across the country,” said Akhtar Nawaz.

Meanwhile, UN children’s agency Unicef said more children were at risk of dying from disease in Pakistan due to the shortage of clean water.

“There is now a high risk of water-borne, deadly diseases spreading rapidly, diarrhoea, cholera, dengue, malaria,” Unicef’s Abdullah Fadil said. “There is therefore a risk of many more child deaths.”

Estimates suggest the floods have caused at least $10 billion of damage in Pakistan, and many people face serious food shortages. Nearly half of the country’s crops have been destroyed. The country was already suffering from an economic crisis, the BBC reported.