Poor health services stalk drought areas

 DROUGHT-ravaged villages in the Middle Fly area of Western are also affected by poor health services, Australian relief worker Sally Lloyd says.

She said hunger, coupled with diseases like malaria for which there was no available medication, led to unnecessary deaths.

“Sometimes, people were really weak from hunger and then, they got malaria or some other sickness and died very quickly.”

Lloyd had been in the area for the past three weeks to help distribute supplies from the Government.

“There’s been a very big increase in the cases of malaria, a lot of people with fever, fainting and things like that,” she said.

“There are some issues in the medical field, running short of medical supplies for treating malaria.

“They don’t have mosquito nets, most of them,” Lloyd said.

“They were due to have some mosquito nets a year ago, but they haven’t received them yet, so they’re in desperate need.

“I see a lot of malaria cases, and some cases of what might be dengue or some other fever and quite a lot of people with diarrhea and they were vomiting,” she said.