Radio to raise health awareness among quake survivors

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has teamed up with Pakistan's Ministry of Environment to launch a series of radio programmes to promote health and hygiene awareness among quake survivors, officials said on Wednesday. "People in an emergency situation need to know how to protect their health and prevent outbreaks of life-threatening diseases," Mohammad El-Fatih, head of UNICEF’s water and sanitation programme, said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. “We are trying to reach as many people as possible with information to persuade them to drink only clean water, which is increasingly available, and to use the latrines that are being constructed,” he added. At least 80,000 people were killed and more than 100,000 injured after the powerful quake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale ripped through Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistani-administered Kashmir on 8 October. In addition, over 3 million people were rendered homeless with extensive damage to water, health, education and communications infrastructure. Two months on, provision of appropriate sanitation facilities and hygiene education across planned and self-settled camps housing about 250,000 people, mostly women and children, remains a big challenge. With more survivors from higher altitude areas arriving, resources in the camps are under pressure. Due to a lack of latrines, there are reports of between 20 and 70 percent of populations in the camps defecating in the open. Furthermore, solid waste is not properly covered and managed, according to health practitioners. At the same time, the outbreak of various diseases at different camps means that more needs to be done on promoting hygiene education, according to UNICEF officials, with water and hygiene-related diseases on the rise, including about 60 reported cases of diarrhoea in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, on 16 November. In addition, progress on the restoration and maintenance of water supply systems in major urban centres and areas with high population density has been very slow, putting the health of the affected population at greater health risk, experts say. To begin to tackle these issues, a three-month project will start on 10 December to produce more than 102 hour-long interactive, radio call-in programmes. The programmes will focus on raising the local population’s awareness of hygiene, water and sanitation: usage of latrines and hand washing; health and nutrition, involving aspects of mother and child health; protection from diarrhoea and acute respiratory problems; routine and special immunisation campaigns; environmental health; and many other related subjects such as child protection. A private station, FM 100, will produce and air the programmes every evening, with an additional episode on Sunday morning, making a total of eight programmes every week. Currently, FM radio broadcast is available in almost all the quake-affected areas through various channels. UNICEF has also been distributing radio sets in the affected areas and organising radio listener groups to enable more people to hear the programmes and generate discussions to reinforce the information.