[This report does not necessarily reflect
the views of the United Nations]
ISLAMABAD, 12 January (IRIN) - 10
January - An outbreak of leishmaniasis, a skin disease caused by the
bite of a sand fly, has been reported in parts of the southern Pakistani
provinces of Sindh and Balochistan. "There are so many cases in the
Dadu district of Sindh alone. The number of cases reported to health authorities
has gone up from 402 to more than 2,900 in just four days. And we are receiving
similar reports from the adjoining districts of Sukkur, Jacobabad, Larkana
and Naushero Feroze," said Dr Hadi Bux Jatoi, director-general (DG)
of health services in Sindh. He was talking to IRIN from Sukkur district,
some 480 km from the Sindh capital, Karachi, on Friday.
7 February - In a fresh upsurge of attacks on government installations in the troubled southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, several electricity transmission lines, communication masts and railway tracks have been blown up in the last week. "Unrest in Balochistan is potentially at a very dangerous point. Government and the tribesmen both need to reduce confrontation before the situation becomes explosive," Irshad Hussain Haqqani, a political analyst, told IRIN from the eastern city of Lahore on Friday.
11 February - Flash floods have badly affected some 17,000 people in nearly 40 villages scattered throughout the southern coastal district of Gawadar in Pakistan's southwest Baluchistan province after more than one week of heavy rains. "The accurate number of deaths or injured is not known yet, as hundreds of people in the inundated areas are missing and many villages are still inaccessible," Ghulam Ali, a district officer, told IRIN on Friday from the southern coastal city of Gawadar. "People of the flooded areas are sitting at higher places on mountains under the open sky and there are no proper shelter arrangements yet."
23 February - The Pakistan government and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Wednesday launched the first ever census of Afghans who have arrived in Pakistan over the past 25 years. The 10-day exercise will continue until 4 March. "It has started only in Peshawar, but it'll be under way in every place in Pakistan by the end of the week," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
2 March - Local authorities on Wednesday evacuated some 5,000 people from low-lying villages in the southern coastal belt of Gawadar district in Pakistan's Balochistan province, after heavy rains caused a breach in the Aakra Kor dam, provincial relief officials told IRIN. "People have been alerted against any potential flash flooding in the southern coastal belt, with the seasonal rivers in high flow following torrential rains over the past two days. The population of villages surrounding Aakra dam have been shifted to safe places," Raziq Bugti, head of the provincial crisis management cell (CMC), told IRIN from the provincial capital, Quetta.
31 March - Pakistan's National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) has launched a national campaign to treat acute diarrhoea with Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS). Diarrhoea causes up to 30 percent of all deaths in children aged five and under across the country, mostly in remote rural areas. "Our main objective is to train one woman from every household to prepare oral rehydration solutions at home and administer them to the affected minor or adult," Dr Moazzam Khalil, head of the health programmes at the NCHD, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.
11 April - Immediate intervention is required to rehabilitate infrastructure in northern districts of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), a UN official told IRIN. The call follows heavy rains and snow in January and February of this year that killed hundreds and severely damaged houses, roads, schools and hospitals in isolated parts of the province. "Despite the official announcements, no steps have been taken so far to help the affected people and compensate for damage to houses, livestock and agriculture," Dr Quaid Saeed, co-ordinator of the UN interagency co-ordination committee in NWFP, told IRIN from the provincial capital Peshawar.
14 April - Several cases of diphtheria and measles among children have been reported in the Pakistani capital Islamabad and the adjacent city of Rawalpindi over the past few weeks, raising concerns about the effectiveness of routine child immunisation on the ground. "An emergency operation against the two diseases was launched immediately in particular areas of the two cities where the reports came from, following the diagnosis of diphtheria and measles cases in the first week of April," Dr Jalil Kamran, head of the Epidemic Investigation Cell (EIC) at the National Institute of Health (NIH), told IRIN in Islamabad on Wednesday.
19 April - A delegation of the Afghan Return Commission Working Group (RCWG) has been visiting Afghan refugees of Turkmen origin in the Pakistani city of Attock in Punjab province, some 80 km northeast of the capital, Islamabad, to hear their concerns about repatriation. The RCWG, a government body, was formed three years ago to help remove obstacles in the way of repatriation of the millions of Afghans living in neighbouring countries. This is the first visit of its kind by the RCWG to inform Afghans in Pakistan about conditions in their homeland and to encourage the repatriation of at least a million Afghans who remain in the country.
5 May - An outbreak of water-borne diseases has been reported in central areas of Pakistan's southern province of Sindh caused by polluted domestic water supplies. Over 1,100 people with diarrhoea and other related problems have attended public health facilities in the last two weeks, a health official told IRIN. "At present, some 300, mostly children, are admitted in various hospitals, while others were discharged after treatment," Dr Masood Solangi, deputy director of the provincial health department, told IRIN from Hyderabad on Wednesday.
24 June - At least 100 mud-walled houses have been damaged by floods while about 500 families have been evacuated by Pakistani army rescue teams after several villages along the River Kabul were flooded on Thursday, according to initial reports by the relief department of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). "People have been shifted to the houses of their relatives and some to public buildings. But so far, we've not received any report concerning human casualty or cattle loss," Ghulam Jillani, the deputy relief commissioner, said from provincial capital, Peshawar.
[ENDS]
Principal donors: IRIN is generously supported by Australia, Canada, Denmark, ECHO, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. For more information, go to: http://www.IRINnews.org/donors
[This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page (Http://www.irinnews.org/copyright ) for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.]