By KUNA,
Geneva : Two UN agencies, the World Health Organnization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), confirmed on Tuesday that no disease outbreaks were reported in Myanmar following the Cyclone Nargis. Spokespersons for WHO Fadela Chaib and UNICEF Michael Klaus though both confirming this information, stressed that many areas were still not accessible. A Thai medical team treated more than 2,500 patients in the past week, mostly for diarrhea and a third of the patients were children. The International Organization for Migration spokesperson Jemini Pandya told reporters that IOM has deployed more medical teams to the cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy region; donations of medical supplies and equipment were arriving in Thailand for onward shipment to Yangon through the UN’s newly-opened Bangkok logistics hub.
She added that the supplies, which include a health kit to meet the needs of 10,000 people for three months, donated by the NGO International Medical Corps (IMC), will be flown into Myanmar from the Don Muang airport logistics hub opened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the weekend.
Pandya added that IOM now has four medical teams working out of Bogale and plans to build this up to eight teams by the end of this week. One team currently focuses on displaced people sheltering in temples and other temporary urban relief sites. The other three mobile teams provide medical outreach to communities south of Bogale and in Mawlamyine Kyune, many of which can only be reached by boat.
IOM Director General Brunson McKinley, who attended Sunday’s Cyclone Nargis international donor conference in Yangon, says that with 1,300 ASEAN national staff in eight of the ten ASEAN countries, IOM will ramp up the number of emergency workers it has in Myanmar at short notice, if asked to do so by the government and the international community.
According to UN estimates provided by the spokesperson of the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) relief has reached 42 percent of the 2.5 million people affected. Byrs added that in the 15 worst hit townships only 23 percent of the 2 million affected have received assistance.