Rohingyas exposed to health risks: IOM

Camping in the open with little or no shelter on muddy hillsides with no access to clean water or latrines, the very young and the old ones are at greatest risk from water borne and contagious diseases.
"Newly arrived children are at high risk of vaccine preventable diseases.
Therefore, he said, the government, the World Health Organization and humanitarian partners launched an urgent immunization programme on Saturday to vaccinate 150,000 newly arrived children.
The Ukhiya doctors and nurses are one of 12 IOM teams operating from government health facilities in the two Cox’s Bazar sub-districts of Ukhiya and Teknaf, where the Rohingya population outside the two UNHCR-run refugee camps now totals an estimated 600,000 people, two thirds of whom have arrived since 25 August.
They also provide with mental health and psychosocial services to about 120 people each day.
Over the past three weeks, IOM teams have provided emergency and primary healthcare services to around 15,000 new arrivals and 9,500 others from the Rohingya and host populations. They assisted 64 child deliveries and provided referral services to another 226 patients.
They say that an estimated 171,800 newly arrived people are not yet covered by any primary health care services. Primary health care coverage also needs to be expanded as soon as possible to cover all newly arrived populations in both spontaneous and existing makeshift settlements, they note.
Last week, IOM has appealed for $26.1 million to meet the immediate needs of the 400,000 newly arrived people now sheltering in Cox’s Bazar.

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