At least nine more children died of malnutrition and outbreak of various diseases in Tharparkar district of Sindh province during the past two days, taking the death toll to 476 this year.
Independent accounts and estimates put the toll around 606, however.
Those who lost their lives in the last two days include six-month-old Mehesh, one-month-old Gulab Meghwar, nine-month-old Handesh, two-month-old Hajan, one-year-old Abdul Sattar and Naseema Noutyar. They all breathed their last in Mithi’s civil hospital. Separately, three newborn babies died in a taluka hospital of Diplo.
The parents of the ailing kids, talking to local journalists, complained about the lack of facilities in hospitals of Tharparkar district.
District Health Officer Dr Chandal Lal claimed that sincere efforts were being made to provide maximum facilities in all the health units of the district, and held early age marriages responsible for most of the deaths.
CEO of Health and Nutrition Development Society (Hands) Dr Shaikh Tanweer Ahmed urged the government to focus on the nutrition of kids and pregnant women in Thar to avoid more fatalities in the vulnerable region.
He said that malnutrition had been the major issue of the arid zone of the country. He also urged the government to provide basic healthcare and nutrition programmes at the grass-root level.
He said that they had no details of those kids referred to Hyderabad and Karachi for the better treatment from Mithi Civil Hospital.
Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, PML-N’s MNA from Thar, has flayed the Sindh government for its alleged apathy over the unabated deaths of the minor kids. He said that most of the health units and dispensaries in the remote villages of the desert were still lying closed despite the tall claims of the provincial government.