KARACHI: A district in Pakistan’s Sindh province has acquired a new biological pesticide from the army to use against swarms of mosquitoes unleashed by stagnant flood waters, a spokesperson for the provincial health department said on Wednesday, adding that the pesticide would be used across the province after regulatory approval.
Triggered by heavy monsoon rains, floods have devastated Pakistan and left over 1,717 people dead and 33 million scrambling to survive. In Sindh province alone, floods have killed 779 people and displaced 7.3 million others, who are living in roadside camps, temporary shelters and many in their villages still surrounded by several feet of water from all sides.
Officials say flood waters could take up to six months to recede. In the meantime, water- and vector-borne diseases like dengue, malaria and skin, eye and gastronomical infections have rapidly spread.
“Deputy commissioner and district health officer [district] Khairpur have acquired pesticide. It will be used in the rest of Sindh after approval from the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan,” Mehar Khursheed, a spokesperson for the Sindh health department, told Arab News.
Khursheed said the pesticide had been procured from the army.
The army could not be reached for comment.
A spokesperson for the health ministry in Balochistan, another flood-hit province, said the administration had not acquired any biological pesticides from the Pakistan army.
Last week, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution to express solidarity with flood-battered Pakistan and called on the international community to increase aid to the South Asian country as it reels from the aftermath of worst-ever floods.
Pakistan and the United Nations last week jointly launched a humanitarian appeal of $816 million, revising it up five-fold from $160 million, as water-borne diseases and the fear of growing hunger pose new dangers weeks after the flooding and rain.
