Sick quake survivors stream into city

Beds reserved for quake victims at the giant Mayo Hospital and other medical centres in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore are quickly filling up once more. Patients suffering from cholera, diarrhoea and other related ailments, stretch out on beds, intravenous lines feeding them with the liquid and drugs they need to stay alive. Many seem hollow-eyed, badly dehydrated and haunted by this new disease threat. Some days ago, bed space had begun to open up in Lahore hospitals, as those with trauma injuries from the quake shifted out to camps or to the homes of relatives. Now, the situation is once more grim. At hospitals closest to the disaster-hit areas, in Abbotabad, Murree, Muzaffarabad and elsewhere – from where more and more patients are being sent to Lahore - doctors state "a new crisis has begun". This time, patients are coming in not with gaping open wounds, gangrene or broken limbs, but with acute diarrhoea, cholera, measles, skin diseases and other infectious illnesses. Many of the worst afflicted are children, with dehydration aggravated by the lack of clean drinking water in many areas. "I have brought my son here from Muzaffarabad. He became ill three days ago and cannot eat or drink at all," said Jameela Begum, holding her three-year-old son in her lap as she sat on a lawn near Lahore's Services Hospital. The child had been given an intravenous drip a few hours ago, to pump fluid into his frail body. "We have nowhere to go. My husband has gone with the older children to find some of our relatives who live here and see if they will take us in," said Jameela. The 8 October quake killed at least 86,000 people and injured more than 100,000. She explained they had opted to bring their child to Lahore, as conditions at the camp they had been based in on the outskirts of Muzzafrabad were "really bad and we feared the other children would get sick too". She added that clean water was not available, there were "too few" toilets and food was running short. Other patients coming to Lahore also hope they can get better and receive more prompt care at city hospitals, with doctors in quake-affected areas again overwhelmed by the new cases of dangerously ill people coming in by the day. They also say rain, that began Thursday, has made conditions at emergency camps still worse. "The second disaster has started. Cholera and diarrhoea are rampant. These sicknesses will take many lives," said Dr Fayyaz Khan, a volunteer doctor who returned to Lahore from Balakot a day ago to try and find drugs to return with and persuade other volunteers to join depleted staff at field hospitals. "We need more saline drips, more anti-diarrhoeal medication. Lots of antibiotics, preventive vaccines and more sanitation facilities," he told IRIN. Many volunteer doctors working in quake areas have returned to routine jobs, believing the worst is over. But those still there believe a new calamity, caused by disease festering in the squalid camps, still hovers menacingly over all quake-hit areas. New reports from Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the Balakot area in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) state hundreds have been hit by ailments such as diarrhoea. On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said hundreds in Pakistan-administered Kashmir had "acute diarrhoea" and their teams were now investigating whether this was an outbreak of cholera. At least 750 people are reported to have been afflicted by diarrhoea at the emergency camp University Ground in Muzaffarbad alone, with almost all major relief agencies expressing growing concern over the situation. Widespread rains in many affected areas Thursday and forecasts of more wet weather ahead have added to the fears of an epidemic. "Rain would be a disaster. Diarrhoeal illness and rain go together and that would aggravate matters," Rachel Levy, WHO emergency coordinator, said. People coming into Lahore say poor sanitation conditions at emergency camps in the north have added to possibility of disease. "There is human waste out in the open, drinking water is in short supply, the living conditions are filthy – naturally people are getting ill," said Muhammad Rafiq, who came to Lahore with his two small children, both suffering diarrhoea. "They need a clean, warm place to live. They will just get sicker and die up there [in the quake zone]. I have lost two children already when their school fell in Balakot. I must save these two," said Rafiq, 36, a mason who with his wife, Abida, and two children, was searching for a place to live at one of the camps set up in Lahore, based at Raiwind, the airport area and other locations. More people are expected to follow, attempting to escape disease and worsening weather conditions in all affected areas. Hospitals in Lahore are gearing up for a new influx. Doctors in the city warn that unless there is an improvement in the situation at quake camps within days, the toll of post-quake deaths caused by disease will begin to rise as more and more fall victim over the weeks to come.