Responding to the government's call for international assistance, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is moving rapidly to deliver the urgently needed reproductive health services to the flood-affected people in Pakistan as part of a co-ordinated humanitarian response.
According to National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the unprecedented torrential rains in the southern part of the country have affected more than 5.7 million people mostly in Sindh province. Over one million houses are damaged or destroyed and there is extensive damage to livestock and crops. The government has so far set up more than 2,600 relief camps. In District Badin (Sindh), Hawa and her family took refuge in a public school building, now even the school is flooding.
The maternal and child health services in at-least 40 per cent of health facilities are currently disrupted. The UNFPA estimates that at least 1.2 million women of reproductive age are among the five million people affected by the heavy monsoon rains and floods across Pakistan. At-least 115,000 are pregnant. Everyday, close to 400 number of women go into labour, at-least 60 have life-threatening pregnancy-related complications that require urgent medical assistance.
Certain districts, now submerged, had high malnutrition even before the floods. The women who were already severely anaemic will be even more prone to complications of pregnancy and delivery. With the continuing rains and stagnating water, pregnant women and new-borns living in open air are increasingly exposed to malaria and dengue. The fund is urgently mobilising more medicines and essential supplies to reach the affected communities. 25 mobile service units are being moved to seven of the hardest-hit districts in Sindh: Badin, Khairpur, Mirpur Khas, Nawabshah, Umerkot, Tando Muhammed Khan and Tando Allahyar Khan. These vehicles are equipped to provide primary health care, basic emergency obstetric care and services responding to gender-based violence. Support will be scaled up to provide comprehensive obstetric services through health facilities in a second phase.