Life after Life

January 16, 2005

The tsunami was a natural disaster that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed millions of people's lives and left entire regions devastated for decades to come. We all know that. And now what we know for the near future is the possibility of disease playing havoc on all the people who survived. Not only do they have to contend with the misery of losing their families and friends, they battle the miserable diseases that reek more human suffering. For non-medical people, I will explain what is now happening in this phase of the recovery effort.

The tsunami decimated villages and infrastructures. The water supply has been polluted by debris and human carcasses and now with so many displaced people living helter-skelter without adequate hygienic conditions, the water supplies further degrade. Mixing human waste into the water system is dangerous because of the many diseases that occur from this combination of affairs. In addition, the current rainy season has made perfect breeding pools of water everywhere for mosquitoes to breed. They carry malaria and the malaria that they carry in Indonesia is sometimes a deadly type. We can take precautions with lotions, use bed nets and take preventive medicines, but the thousands of people outside in tents are exposed and run the greatest risk of being affected.

To address this situation, the World Health Organization and the other aid organizations are helping to initiate an anti-malarial campaign. I went to a training course and learned about the current treatment protocol, insecticide spraying and use of new rapid laboratory diagnostic kits.
My plan this week is to find local partners in the community to begin the spraying of houses. This is most interesting because we can actually keep the mosquito population down this way and prevent disease. I believe it is important to attack before the problem occurs. This is also why improving the hygiene in the camps is so important. When thousands of people live together in crowded conditions problems are inevitable. Limited water supplies, inadequate waste disposal, and a basic lack of public health awareness set the stage for future challenges ahead. Please send your blessings to them.

I'm off to bed.

Sleep well, too.

Hugs, Cary