Nepali Times
Letters


FOOD
I would like to thank the Nepali Times for its timely articles on the consequences of this season's failed monsoon (#463). I was lucky enough to work with the Nepal Red Cross and the Home Ministry 37 years ago as they prepared, what I believe, was Nepal's first national disaster preparedness plan.

The warnings of the recently released UN World Food Programme report, The Cost of Coping: A Collision of Crises, paint a dire worst case scenario for Nepal, as early as this winter. Already, according to the WFP, 48 per cent of children under five suffer chronic malnourishment, 60 per cent in mountain areas. Malnourishment is a major contributor to disease in Nepal and further reductions in the food supply will only put greater pressure on an overburdened health system.

In the current tragedy of cholera in western Nepal, we have seen the media take the government to task for lack of preparedness and inadequate response. This time I hope they will not wait till disaster is already upon us to critique the government's response, but instead will investigate and report what actions the government is taking in advance of a possible catastrophe. My hopes are that the ministries are doing everything possible to prepare for a worst case scenario, but I can only know what the media reports. It is in exposing the government's deliberations and plans that the expertise of Nepal's greater civil society can be brought to bear.

Fred Shepardson,
email

CHOLERA
While I concur with most of what Mallika Aryal has to say in her column, I do not agree with the statement, 'the best doctors need to go, not interns' ('Confusion in the time of cholera', #463).

What we are dealing with in the mid-and far west is diarrhea and cholera caused by unsafe water and poor hygiene and sanitation, and spread over a difficult terrain. The 'best doctors' may treat some patients who visit health camps but they normally do not go door-to-door to put an end to the cause of the epidemic. So what we really need are many interns, health assistants, public health students, female community health volunteers or just trained professionals who can reach every household and spread the word on the need for safe water, hygiene and sanitation and how water can be treated at the household level. We need doctors and helicopters but more than that we need to reach out to every household so as to contain the spread of the epidemic. Just treating patients in health camps is addressing the symptoms but not the root cause of the problem.

Some youth groups have recently started a campaign called Paschim Paaila, which is sending trained volunteers, mostly public health students to the epidemic affected areas, along with chlorine solution for water treatment and packets of oral rehydration salts, to raise awareness on safe water and sanitation, and help in treating water at the community or household levels. They may not have the 'best doctors' with them, but they are definitely making a difference.

Bhushan Tuladhar
Environment and Public Health Organisation



LATEST ISSUE
638
(11 JAN 2013 - 17 JAN 2013)


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