I am tired

My days begin at 5:45am because I need at least an hour in the morning to become coherent in time for the start of my workday at 7:00am. While most people are beginning to stir awake, the WHO busy bees are buzzing away, battling the evils of Morbidity and Mortality. It's only been a week, but I've already learned a lot and couldn't be happier with how things are going. Currently on the agenda are meetings for the post-typhoon health emergencies in the Philippines and research on future health agendas for the Dept. of Health.

The situation here is unbelievable. There are still people trapped in and around flood waters, where diseases are rampant. The worst offender is leptospirosis, mostly due to the high levels of rat urine in the stagnant water. As of October 1, there are 1963 reported cases and 148 deaths, and the figure increases daily. Compare this to 40 deaths and 640 cases between 2004 to 2006, and you see how problematic this is. The DOH has a plan to distribute prophylaxis to the most at-risk populations throughout the affected regions, but there hasn't been an outbreak to this magnitude before, so there isn't an existing plan of action. However, it's not just lepto that they have to deal with. There are also increasing cases of diarrhea, cholera, and typhoid.

What do you do with the people who are in these areas, and currently displaced in evacuation centers? They can't be expected to wait out their lives in some temporary holding facility until their former homes are habitable. More often than not, they weren't even that to begin with. And the flood waters are going to be here for months--it's not as if there's a bottomless pit of funding for these medications. Then to top everything off, the typhoons keep coming--Ramil (Lupit) is expected to hit the country this weekend. Oh boy...