STAFF REPORT ISB: As the searing heat wave persisted in the interior Sindh for the last few days, it brought a sharp increase
in diarrhoea and sunstroke patients across the province coupled with severe water shortage across the region.
Pakistan is facing an imminent threat from climate change and is on its way to become one of the most water stressed
countries in the world a few years down the road.
While there is no clear-cut solution to the issue we are facing with extreme weather, people can focus on some remedies to
at an individual level.
Impacts such as proliferation of water-borne diseases as is documented every summer, seawater intrusion and salinisation
of coastal areas of Sindh, eco-degradation of watersheds of the Indus and glacial decline, are all problems that Pakistan
continues to battle and the apparent lack of political will to address these challenges head on is exacerbating the intensity of
these issues.
A 2009 study by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars concluded that more than two million people in the
city of Peshawar drink contaminated water.
The report concluded that due to lack of access to safe drinking water, nationwide, 630 Pakistani children die each day from
diarrhea alone.
These are alarming statistics and accountability must be promised to the people before we are on the verge of a public
health disaster.