Burma: "A race against time"

Via The Irrawaddy, an AP report by Margie Mason, one of the best medical reporters in the business: Preventing Disease Outbreaks is 'Race against Time.' Excerpt:

Getting supplies to survivors of Cyclone Nargis in Burma is now a "race against time" to prevent a disease disaster, as many impoverished victims continue to await aid a week after the storm, experts warn.

Reports of diarrhea and skin problems have already surfaced, and health officials fear waterborne illnesses will emerge because of a lack of clean water, along with highly contagious diseases such as measles.

Children, including those orphaned by the storm, face some of the greatest risks.

The threat is heightened because many people in the worst-affected Irrawaddy delta were already in poor health prior to the cyclone. The storm has killed some 23,000 people and left about 37,000 missing, according to state media. Hundreds of thousands more were left homeless in the military-run country, which has one of the world's worst health care systems.

"The fact that there are people we still haven't gotten to is very distressing to all of us. We don't know how many that is," Tim Costello, president of the aid agency World Vision Australia, said by telephone on Saturday from Rangoon. "The people are all exposed to the elements, and they are very, very vulnerable. It's a race against time."

In the badly hit town of Laputta, family members were forced to use rusty sewing needles to close wounds at a hospital where no doctors or supplies were visible. One man lay dying from a lack of care after his foot was cut off in the cyclone.

The World Health Organization has reported children suffering from upper respiratory diseases, and with next week's forecast calling for rain, there was yet another urgent reason to move quickly.

Fears of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, which are endemic to the area, have also heightened. However, outbreaks would not be expected for another week or longer because the mosquitoes need time to breed in stagnant water left from the storm, said Osamu Kunii, UNICEF's chief of health and nutrition in Rangoon.

Cholera remains another concern, but there have been no diagnosed cases. Kunii said Burma's health ministry also agreed to start a mass vaccination campaign against measles.

"Once those diseases start, it's very hard to control," he said, adding that food and water were reaching more survivors, but not everyone.

Meanwhile, the junta's website New Light of Myanmar hasn't been updated since May 1. Good luck even getting access to it.

The Burmese generals are clearly unmoved by appeals to decency and common sense. Like Stalin, they regard one death as a tragedy and a million as a statistic.

They have remained in power for forty endless years, in large part because their neighbours—China, Thailand, and India—have made money out of dealing with them.

If the rest of the world wants to see real change in Burma, pressure on those neighbours seems like the best way to achieve it.