Sindh is the worst-hit province so far, accounting for the most deaths and injuries. Of the 1,396 fatalities countrywide, Sindh’s total is 578. Injuries number is 8,321 of the countrywide total of 12,728…reports Asian Lite News
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned the international community that all countries would suffer damages “beyond their capacity to adapt” if the world failed to respond to the challenge of climate change, Samaa TV reported.
After a two-day Pakistan visit, the UN chief took to Twitter to write that he had “never seen climate carnage on the scale of the floods here in Pakistan”.
“This is a global crisis. It demands a global response,” he said.
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The monsoon rainfall and subsequent floods have killed 1,396 people across the country between June 14 and September 9, and have left 12,728 injured. More than 30 million have also been displaced, Dawn reported.
Sindh is the worst-hit province so far, accounting for the most deaths and injuries. Of the 1,396 fatalities countrywide, Sindh’s total is 578. Injuries number is 8,321 of the countrywide total of 12,728.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday said his organisation would strongly advocate for ‘debt swaps’ with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank through which developing countries, including Pakistan — instead of paying back loans to foreign creditors — would be able to use that money to invest in climate resilience, investments in sustainable infrastructure, and green transition of their economies, Express Tribune reported.
“We will go on strongly advocating for these solutions in the meetings with the IMF and World Bank that will take place soon as well as at the G-20 meeting,” Guterres told the media on his arrival at the old airport of Karachi.
The UN chief appealed to the international community to scale up its support for flood-hit Pakistan, Express Tribune reported.
“We see here in Pakistan, the nature is striking back with devastating consequences,” he observed, adding: “I have seen many disasters in the world but I have never seen climate carnage on these scales.”
Country faces shortage of fever medicines
Pakistan is continuing to report more and more dengue virus cases daily, with panic and fear spreading among the public as a shortage of fever medicines has also surfaced, media reports said.
In Pakistan’s Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan, dengue has started to take a dangerous turn, Geo News reported.
Karachi reported another death from dengue virus in the last 24 hours, with over 2,000 people affected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after excessive rains left breeding sites for mosquitoes, the report stated.
The wards reserved for dengue patients in Karachi’s hospitals have been are full. Punjab reported 125 new cases of the mosquito-borne disease. Moreover, dengue claimed four lives in the province, data from the Health Department showed.
Meanwhile, a shortage of medicine for fever remains persists in most areas of the country, with pharmacies in Punjab awaiting a resumption in the supply of the drug in Punjab for the last four weeks, Geo News reported.
In Peshawar, the price of a leaf of fever pills has increased from Rs 17 to Rs 30.
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