A total of 97,777 cyclone victims have been given treatment onboard mobile watercraft hospitals sailing deep into some storm-hit areas in Myanmar where road transport is hardly accessible, the local weekly Voice reported on Saturday.
The watercrafts, owned by the state-run Inland Water Transport,have moved into the disaster-torn region since May 20 covering theareas of Laputta, Phyapon, Bogalay and Mawgyun in Ayeyawaddy delta, the report said.
The introduction of the mobile hospitals has reinforced the medical care for the cyclone-hit victims in addition to township hospitals based locally.
Meanwhile, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs)are also engaged in rebuilding some rural health care facilities in the Ayeyawaddy delta destroyed by the cyclone storm that hit early last May.
Then report said 75 percent of the health facilities in the cyclone-hit regions were destroyed by the storm.
A post-Nargis joint assessment report of Myanmar, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United Nations (UN) also said the loss with the health facilities due to the disaster amounted to 18.894 billion Kyats (15.74 million U.S. dollars).
Of the loss, one third was suffered by the private sector.
The assessment report estimated that it needs 31 billions Kyats(25.8 million dollars) for the restoration work in the heath sector.
Meanwhile, the Myanmar Medical Association has carried out freehealth care services in storm-hit areas in two divisions of Ayeyawaddy and Yangon and over 585 doctors and specialists from other parts of the country have provided treatment to 22,784 patients during their trips to the cyclone-hit regions in the lasttwo months, according to earlier reports.
In the post-Nargis period, dozens of international medics were also allowed in Myanmar to render medical services to the cyclone victims. These medics include those from Thailand, India, Laos, China, Bangladesh, Singapore, the Philippines, France, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Sri Lanka.
These groups respectively served in such disaster-hit townshipsas Laputta, Myaungmya, Bogalay, Phyapon, Kyauktan, Kungyangon and Maubin.
Various other domestic health care associations, INGOs, privateclinics and Myanmar traditional medicine practitioners have also made field trips to the storm-hit areas and carried out treatment for survivors.
A compiled statistics showed that during the early post-Nargis period, a total of 206,039 storm patients had received medical treatment.
Deadly tropical cyclone Nargis swept five divisions and states -- Ayeyawaddy, Yangon, Bago, Mon and Kayin on last May 2 and 3, of which Ayeyawaddy and Yangon inflicted the heaviest casualties and massive infrastructural damage.
The storm killed 84,537 people, leaving 53,836 missing and 19,359 injured according to official statistics.
(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2008)
