“As COVID-19 disrupts immunizations, urgent action needed to protect most vulnerable children from deadly and debilitating diseases”

ROLPA, April 19: When the plague came to my village in Rolpa in 1943, my neighbors started dying. People fled to the forests to escape from the disease. My mother also passed away in April 1943. No one from the village came to cremate her dead body. My maternal uncles from another village dug a hole to bury her and returned without visiting our home. “My father tied a rope around the waist of the dead body, dragged it to the hole and buried,” Nandalal Pokhrel, 87, of Rolpa Municipality-1, Mewang, recalled the story of the epidemic, which haunted Nepali society some 77 years ago.

MYAGDI, Aug 23: Beni bazaar, the district headquarters of Myagdi district, has been under the grip of diarrhoea for the past some days. Contaminated sources of water and unhygienic foods are to blame for the disease.

MAHOTTARI, Aug 15: Mahottari district, which is presently struggling with floods, is now under threat of epidemic outbreak. Over 40,000 households in Mahottari district alone have been affected. Around 37 villages still remain inundated by flood water and people are beginning to panic with the possibility of an epidemic. The panic is triggered by the recent increase in cases of fever, cold and stomach related problems among flood victims.

Recently, news of people testing positive for dengue have been doing the rounds in the Valley and as the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division (EDCD) of the Department of Health Services gears up to tackle it, the question of how equipped we are to deal with it is the first thing on everybody’s mind.