Health crisis in eastern Burma
The Back Pack Health Worker Team (BPHWT), a Thai NGO established by Burmese expats in 1998, provides primary health care and health education to rural and conflict-ridden areas of Burma. They have 70 teams of 2-5 health workers trying to meet the health needs of some 140,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the east of the country.
In 2004 BPHWT surveyed 2,000 homes in this region. Their report, released this week, reveals appalling abuses of the right to health:
- Of every 1,000 children born, 91 die in infancy and 221 die before the age of five.
- Between 1,000 and 1,200 women are dying for every 100,000 births. (Worse than in DR Congo.)
- 15% of children are moderately or severely malnourished. (In August 2005, the UN World Food Programme put the figure at about 40%.)
- 12% of people have malaria at any given time, including drug-resistant strains.
In 2005 the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced that it would withdraw from Burma due to the restrictions imposed on it by the ruling military junta.
Other rights concerns:
- one-third of families reported at least one member being subjected to forced labour in the last year.
- Almost 2% of families reported at least one member being shot at, beaten or stabbed by junta soldiers over the same period.
There are only 88 males per 100 females in the 15-25 age bracket, a ratio similar to Cambodia after the fall of Pol Pot (but in contrast to parts of India and China where women and girls are under-represented).
Amnesty International has called for action at the highest levels, seeking to have Burma put on the agenda of the UN Security Council.
