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| Saturday, 01 January 2005 |
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Disease next as tsunami toll rises, experts say WASHINGTON, Friday (Reuters) Diarrhea, malaria, dengue fever, and even meningitis and flu may be waiting to cause a second wave of misery across Indian Ocean coastal areas devastated by Sunday's tsunami, experts said on Thursday. Low-tech solutions such as using clothing to filter water could help prevent some epidemics, but most people are probably too traumatized to remember to take such measures, public health experts said. "The worst is yet to come, I am afraid, because of the breakdown in sanitation facilities," said Dr. Robert Edelman, a professor of medicine and vaccine expert at the University of Maryland. Getting clean water to the millions of people affected will be the first step, but an overwhelming one, said Dr. Gilbert Burnham, Co-Director of the Center for International Emergency, Disaster and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Although people traditionally fear that unburied bodies carry disease, health experts agreed there was little danger. "Cholera is certainly not contracted by dealing with dead bodies, that is for sure," Edelman said. Decomposing bodies may make water unpalatable, he said, but do not make it toxic. |
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