Act with urgency

Yet again, the Mid-Western region of the country is suffering from acute shortage of vital medicines. Reportedly, the health centers of Jajarkot, for instance, including the District Hospital, are grappling with scarcity of medicines. With the onset of the monsoon season, this remote district now faces high chances of epidemic outburst similar to the one faced by the people there some two years ago. The most vulnerable are the children and the old. The health workers have already warned that in case the medicines are not supplied to Jajarkot very quickly, the chances of a disease becoming epidemic are high.



The shortage has come about as a result of failure of Regional Medical Store to meet the requirements. It is also said that the state-run Integrated Health Care Campaign has completely run out of its stock. According to District Health Office, Jajarkot is facing a shortage of roughly 20 different types of medicines including antibiotics, injections and syringes.



Clearly, time is running out. All requests made locally to the authorities have fallen on deaf ears so far and the District Health Office seems helpless. Poor people are compelled to pay high prices for medicines at private clinics. Authorities have said that some medicines dispatched for Jajarkot have been waiting in Nepalgunj due to the lack of air route and road way and that the budget for purchase and transport of this year’s medicines would be issued only around mid-September. But the question is: Can the desperate lot in Jajarkot wait even a day longer? This is a serious issue of national concern and must be awarded highest priority even when the country is facing one of the worst political situations.



Health is important and thus the government must dispatch medicinal supply right away and send health workers to the region to speed up awareness programs on causes and effects of water-borne diseases especially. The state must also put in place a coordination mechanism to rope in donors, INGOs and NGOs that could provide useful assistance to the state to avert the looming danger.



The lack of planning for the outbreak investigation, coordination at regional and district level, lack of management knowledge are the main factors for spreading outbreak from the government side, whereas lack of awareness, open field defecation, eating stale food and drinking unsafe water are leading factors from the public part. But the government must act now to prevent a repeat of the 2009 experience when more than 100 people lost their lives in Jajarkot alone due to diarrhea epidemic.



Just within two and half months of monsoon, the death toll in Jajarkot then reached 88. More than 400 people from Jajarkot, Aachham, Dailekh, Surkhet and Salyan districts lost their lives and some 5,000 were affected. Likewise, cholera outbreak that occurred in Jajarkot few years ago claimed 150 lives and more than 20,000 people were affected in the Mid-West. We cannot let such a situation arise again. Precious lives must be saved at any cost.

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