Medicines Sans Frontiers or MSF is calling on actors to immediately mobilize resources for assessment and response to Pibor and Maban floods victims.
MSF says it was forced to reduce life-saving services and discharge patients as the primary healthcare center and compound became entirely flooded in Pibor.
It says the situation cut off patients and the community from health care or assistance.
MSF is also calling on other actors to solicit funds to reduce the risk of water borne diseases like cholera and Hepatitis due to rising water levels and contamination of sources.
‘As soon as possible, the remaining nine patients in our care will be moved to a safer location. With a reinforced team including a field coordinator, medical activities manager and water and sanitation manager, MSF is urgently working alongside national staff colleagues in Pibor to again move and set up another temporary tented facility in a higher location,’ says Roderick Embuido, MSF’s medical coordinator in South Sudan.
In MSF’s health center, one critically ill child on oxygen support died when flooded generators caused a power cut.
The MSF compound also flooded and roads became impassible, temporarily preventing the team from reaching the health center.
‘We are extremely concerned for the population in outlying areas around Pibor and Maban. Our attention is on urgently conducting aerial and ground assessments to understand the broader impact and to adapt our existing activities in Pibor town to a continuously changing situation’, says Kim Gielens, MSF head of mission in South Sudan.
He adds that ‘we know that with rising and contaminated water sources comes the risk of outbreaks of deadly waterborne diseases like cholera and hepatitis A’.
MSF is also concerned that flooding will increase risks of malnutrition due to the destruction of food stocks and crops.
MSF is expressing concerns about increase in snakebites, as snakes will move in dryer land where displaced people by floods will gather together.