Credit: Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty
The work is not unfamiliar to us. We deployed teams to respond to the major flooding in 2010 and the 7.6-magnitude earthquake that hit Pakistan in 2005. But the scale and severity of the disaster this time are much larger than we have seen before. The extensive flooding has already created huge problems in accessing flood-affected regions, especially because many highways are underwater.One major issue is caring for pregnant women and newborns.
Another problem is malnutrition. We already have a very high prevalence of malnutrition in women, especially during pregnancy, and some 40% of children in the province of Sindh — a heavily affected region — are stunted, which means they are not as tall as they should be for their age. The food insecurity caused by these floods will further exacerbate malnutrition. We are trying to provide semi-solid food supplements for extra calories, especially for pregnant women and children.