Health experts are scrambling to prevent widespread illness after reports of malaria outbreaks and diarrhea surfaced in areas of Myanmar hardest hit by a cyclone, U.N. health officials said.
Early estimates indicate 20 percent of children in the most devastated areas are suffering from diarrhea, and the situation could worsen, said Osamu Kunii, UNICEF's chief of health and nutrition in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city.
"Most of the area is covered by dirty water," he said Thursday. "There's a lot of dead bodies and they have very poor access — sometimes no access — to clean drinking water or food."
Water purification tablets are unlikely to help because much of the water supply has been contaminated by saltwater, he said.
In 2000, Myanmar's health system was ranked as the world's worst after war-ravaged Sierra Leone. There are hospitals, but most people cannot afford treatment.
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