A Summary Case Report on the Health Impacts and Response to the Pakistan Floods of 2010

Abstract

In July 2010, Pakistan suffered nationwide floods after unprecedented monsoon rains overwhelmed the Indus basin. The ensuing floods claimed 1985 lives, injured 2946 people and affected over 20.2 million people. Seventy-eight out of 121 districts were affected and at one stage one-fifth of the country’s land was inundated with water. Indiscriminate damage was caused to housing, educational and health facilities, communication networks, power plants and grids, irrigation channels, agricultural land and livestock. Over 37 million medical consultations were reported within one year of the floods with acute respiratory infection, skin diseases, acute diarrhoea and suspected malaria forming the most common presentations. Rescue and relief operations were organised through the National Disaster Management Authority and a UN Cluster Approach was adopted for providing humanitarian assistance. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) played a pivotal role in coordinating relief efforts between cluster groups and providing communication platforms for identifying gaps and sharing information. This paper attempts to collate information available in the public domain into a summary report based on key principles described by Kulling et al. (2010) on health crisis reporting.