Daily Times

With flood water levels in as many as 18 districts in Sindh losing strength, life in the red zone might have started showing signs of normalcy had it not been for the “second disaster of disease and death” breathing down the country’s neck.

In what can only be called a tragedy upon tragedy, the onslaught of “monsoon on steroids” that turned vast tracts into a 100-kilometre-wide inland lake has also carried alongside the Damoclean sword of water-borne diseases.

Emergency wards in the South present heart-wrenching visuals befitting the frontline of a vicious battle. Skin and eye infections, diarrhoea, malaria typhoid and the ever-so-brutal dengue fever; the cocktail of the fast-spreading illnesses keeps getting longer and longer. As per official figures, over 340 people who had miraculously won over the tenacity of record-breaking rainfall have lost their lives to these diseases. And the situation is this dire even before the cold winds have arrived with the back-breaking baggage of respiratory illnesses. The healthcare system, brought down to its knees by an utter breakdown of the infrastructure and never-before-witnessed displacement of masses, is in no state to keep up with the flow of patients for long. It might have dodged the pandemic bullet but the pressure of tearing more than 2,5 million people in Sindh alone can shove it towards a collapse.

There have been announcements of the provincial government temporarily hiring more than 5,000 health professionals, but doctors cannot pull any rabbits until the availability of life-saving drugs and an effective testing system are ensured. That Pakistan needs the assistance of the international community to survive is an understatement. The writing on the wall is becoming bloodier with every passing day. Fortunately, the humanitarian relief agencies wish to stand in our corner; appealing to the world to be more serious in their donations and generous in their collaborations.

But whether they continue to close their ears to the deafening alarm bells or realise that all human lives are worth saving, tens of millions of Pakistanis–holding no bearing whatsoever on the climate change saga–would remain suspended between fire and the frying pan. *