Cholera Outbreak in Kashmir

During recent months MSF Holland has been gradually winding-down its activities in Kashmir. Projects were closed in Lamnian in June and in Leepa in July. A few weeks ago we handed-over our basic health clinics in Muzaffarabad to another NGO. Now all that remains for us in Kashmir is supporting the Hattian hospital and doing water and sanitation work in Muzaffarabad. The plan is to have only 5 Expats in Kashmir by September and by the end of 2006 to have exited the region, altogether.

Things in Kashmir have been relatively relaxed until there was the recent cholera outbreak. MSF first started treating a fairly small number of patients in Hattian three weeks ago. Now in Muzaffarabad, where around 22,000 people are still staying in camps, the MSF team is quickly setting up a cholera treatment centre on the hospital grounds, in cooperation with the ministry of health and other organizations.

We have reallocated staff to work on this and our logistics people are busy getting the centre set-up and arranging for supplies. Very quickly a lot of people have become very busy.