UN warns of new disease threat to Pakistan quake survivors

ISLAMABAD, Friday (AFP) - Survivors of last year's huge earthquake in Pakistan are at increased risk of pneumonia after recent snow and rain caused the aid effort's first crisis of the winter, the United Nations said.

Officials said the disease had already claimed up to 19 lives in Pakistani Kashmir and North West Frontier Province in the past six weeks, five of them during the last week.

But they said they hoped to have made enough preparations to avert a feared second wave of deaths from hunger and sickness among more than 2.5 million people living in tents and temporary shelters.

"The temperatures are falling, they are dropping fast and the cold spell will bring the spectre of increased pneumonia," UN humanitarian coordinator in Pakistan Jan Vandemoortele told reporters in Islamabad.

"The snow came late but it came with a vengeance. The weather on the weekend was very severe with snow falling below the usual snowline of 5,000 feet (1,500 metres) and with heavy rain flooding countless tents," he added.

The October 8 disaster killed more than 73,000 people and severely injured about the same number, and left most survivors without shelter just weeks before the start of the bitter Himalayan winter.

World Health Organisation representative Mohamud Khalif Bile said aid workers had already managed to prevent around 45 separate outbreaks of measles in the quake zone after individual cases were detected.

He said health officials were stepping up a vaccination campaign for women and children; setting up monitoring systems so they were aware of possible outbreaks; and getting extra medicines to the area.

He confirmed that there had been "18 or 19" deaths from pneumonia in the devastated area in the past six weeks.

Vandemoortele said the UN's 550-million-dollar flash appeal launched days after the quake had so far received 305 million dollars in cash, with another 10 million dollars pledged, representing 57 percent of the total.

"It is considered that good appeals are those that go past the 60 percent mark," he added.

The UN needed two million dollars a day to keep its aid operations running, he added.

Vandemoortele said 1.9 million quake survivors were living independently in tents below the snowline, 250,000 were in organised camps and another 400,000 were living in temporary shelters constructed above the snowline.

All but 10 percent of the tents were either winterised or had been built up with plastic sheeting and blankets to be able to withstand the cold conditions, the official added.