Pakistan hit by deadly cholera outbreak as heat wave grips South Asia
A
deadly cholera outbreak
linked to contaminated drinking water has infected thousands of people in
central Pakistan as the country grapples with a water crisis exacerbated by a
brutal heat wave in South Asia.
Temperatures
in parts of Pakistan and India have
reached record levels in recent weeks, putting the lives of
millions at risk as the effects of the climate crisis are felt across the subcontinent.
Cholera
cases were first identified in Pir Koh, a remote mountainous town in
Balochistan province, on April 17. Since then, more than 2,000 people have been
have been infected and six have died, according to Dr. Ahmed Baloch, from the
health department of Balochistan.
Residents
in Pir Koh say they have no access to clean drinking water. The
lack of rain this year has caused nearby ponds to dry up, with their only
source of water being a pipeline which had "rusted and contaminated the
water supply," said local resident Hassan Bugti.
"Residents
are forced to drink dirty water," he said.
Pakistan's
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered "emergency relief measures"
to curb the cholera outbreak in Pir Koh, and the
military has been called in to help provide mobile water tanks to ensure clean
drinking water gets to the population and set up medical camps to treat the
sick.
Cholera is an acute diarrheal illness that kills thousands of
people worldwide each year. It is easily transmitted, by consuming food or
water contaminated with the fecal bacteria Vibrio cholerae. And scientists have warned of the severe impacts of climate change on human health, with
rising temperatures encouraging the spread of dangerous pathogens such as
cholera.
The outbreak comes as Pakistan faces a serious water crisis
and an early onset heat wave that the Pakistan Meteorological Department said
has been persistent across the nation since the start of the month.
Jacobabad,
one of the hottest cities in the world, in central Sindh province, hit 51
degrees Celsius (123.8 degrees Fahrenheit) on Sunday, and 50 degrees Celsius
(122 degrees Fahrenheit) the day before. Average high temperatures in the city
this month have been around 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).
The
heat is unlikely to abate soon. While dust storms, gusty winds and scattered
showers and thunderstorms brought relief to parts of the country over the past
couple of days, temperatures are expected to ramp back up from Wednesday,
according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department.
Pakistan's
Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman on Monday said Pakistan was among the
most water-stressed countries in the world and one of the ten most vulnerable
to climate stress.
The
country's major dams are at a "dead level right now, and sources of water
are scarce as well as contested," Rehman told CNN, adding, "this is
an all-encompassing existential crisis and must be taken seriously."
In
the summer of 2015 a heatwave killed
more than a thousand people in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi.
India
suffers under the heat
The
heat wave has also been felt by Pakistan's neighbor India, where temperatures
in the capital region of Delhi surpassed 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees
Fahrenheit) on Sunday.
In
recent months India has experienced a severe heat wave that saw average maximum
temperatures reach the highest in 122 years in northwest India in April, and
countrywide in March.
The
scorching heat breached the 49 degrees Celsius mark for the first time this
year in Delhi, with temperatures reaching 49.2 degrees Celsius (120.5 degrees
Fahrenheit) at Delhi's Mungeshpur weather station and 49.1 degrees Celsius
(120.3 degrees Fahrenheit) at Najafgarh weather station on Sunday, according to
the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). New Delhi has suffered through 14
days in May above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
Gurgaon,
southwest of New Delhi, recorded its highest temperature since May 10, 1966,
with 48.1 degrees Celsius (118.5 degrees Fahrenheit) on Sunday, according to
the IMD.
The
IMD forecasts some relief for Delhi, with cloudy and clear skies for the next
couple of days. However, it forecasts high temperatures to return in some parts
of the region later in the week.
In
some states, the heat has forced schools to close, damaged crops and put
pressure on energy supplies, as officials warned residents to remain indoors
and keep hydrated. On Saturday, India banned wheat
exports -- days after saying it was targeting record shipments
this year -- as the heat wave curtailed output and domestic prices hit a record
high.
India
often experiences heat waves during the summer months of May and June, but this
year temperatures started rising in March and April.
India
and Pakistan are among the countries expected to be worst affected by the
climate crisis, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC). Experts say climate change is causing more frequent and longer heat
waves, affecting more than a billion people across the two countries.
Dr.
Chandni Singh, IPCC lead author and senior researcher at the Indian Institute
for Human Settlements, said this heat wave "is testing the limits of human
survivability."
"This
heat wave is definitely unprecedented," Singh said earlier
this month. "We have seen a change in its intensity, its
arrival time, and duration. This is what climate experts predicted and it will
have cascading impacts on health."
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