UNICEF training field workers as Sindh water crisis worsens

The United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) is supporting the training of over 600 female health workers, who will travel door-to-door in the southern city of Hyderabad and its outlying regions to educate mothers and families in the use of chlorine, according to a UNICEF official. The move comes after the death of at least 30 people, many of whom were children, from polluted water. The decision to employ field workers to inform local residents about the need for water purification was reached at a meeting between a special joint-team formed by UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) and provincial health officials last week, Raana Syed, UNICEF's provincial head for Sindh, told IRIN in the southern port city of Karachi on Thursday. Besides the 30 confirmed dead, thousands more have been diagnosed with severe gastric illnesses following the discovery that the city's water supply was badly contaminated in late May. Children are said to be most at risk after reports suggested that polluted water from a nearby lake was allowed to enter the city's supply. "Latest reports say more than 30 people are dead. And about 4,000 to 5,000 people have reported sick to local hospitals. But those who have suffered milder symptoms and not reported to hospitals are, of course, uncountable," Syed said. "Children suffer the most because their bodies are smaller, they dehydrate faster and possibly at more risk of dying. But in this particular case, there are adults who have also died, despite the majority of deaths being children," she explained. The female health workers were important in this context because they would "go and show and demonstrate to mothers how to use some method of water purification," she added. Field workers would also be directed to take anyone who exhibited any symptoms of gastric disorders immediately to the hospital, Syed said. "One of the reasons for that is that people come to government hospitals too late, they go to local doctors and try home remedies and by the time they come to the hospital, it's too late and it's impossible to save them," she stressed. The crisis, which has already prompted the UN to form a disaster management team in order to thrash out an "assistance plan" for the beleaguered local administration, has been exacerbated by the fact that a city filtration plant is said to have been out of commission. "One of the needs identified by the water and sanitation authority in Hyderabad was that they need help in establishing a process for testing, especially for bacteriological testing. And that's what we are working towards also," Syed pointed out. The UNICEF official said that the agency was also supporting efforts to establish a testing system to see if levels of chlorine met health standards. "The testing system will be checking at the household level, where there is tap water, to see what level of chlorine is still present in the water when it reaches the household because there are certain standards that need to be met,' she stressed.