As the death toll continues to mount in cyclone-stricken Myanmar, health experts worry that a second wave of fatalities -- from disease and malnutrition -- could threaten the region in the weeks and months to come.
According to the U.S. State Department, the country has already sustained a staggering death toll, with more than 100,000 dead. Clean water shortages and corpses floating in flooded areas have already been reported.
Now, according to United Nations officials, about 1 million survivors find themselves in need of shelter and emergency care, and disaster medicine experts say thousands more will likely perish unless proper aid reaches them quickly.
"[Myanmar] was already stretching to meet minimal health care and sanitization standards before the cyclone," says Maurice A. Ramirez, co-founder of Disaster Life Support of North America Inc., a national provider of disaster preparation and recovery education based in Kissimmee, Fla.
"Now anything that has been a health problem in [Myanmar] in the past five years will be seen in a larger proportion," he says. "Even if they have all the [country's] health care available, that couldn't meet the needs to begin with."
Dr. Martin J. Blaser, chairman of the department of medicine and professor of microbiology at the New York University School of Medicine, says the number of additional deaths may rise another 5 or 10 percent. "This seems like a small percentage, but you're dealing with a lot of people."
A shortage of clean water is perhaps the biggest health threat that now faces the survivors of Cyclone Nargis.
"If a safe water supply is not provided, there will be a large rise in gastrointestinal problems such as cholera and typhoid fever," says Dr. Pascal James Imperato, dean of the graduate program in public health and distinguished service professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn.
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