Slow Myanmar aid raises health risks for survivors

MYAUNG MYA, Myanmar (Reuters) - Even if they manage to find food and shelter, the 1.5 million destitute survivors of Myanmar's Cyclone Nargis still face a major risk from infected wounds, chronic diarrhea and malaria or dengue.

In Labutta, one of the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta towns, a third of patients had laceration wounds on their backs from the stinging rain and debris whipped up by winds of 190 km (120 miles) per hour, a Burmese doctor told Reuters.

He said sepsis, a rampant infection of the bloodstream that causes organ failure, was widespread two days after the former Burma's worst natural disaster in recent memory.

"These are injuries we have never seen before," he said in Myaung Mya, 50 kms north of Labutta where 80 percent of buildings were damaged or destroyed, including the hospital which had its roof ripped away.

Many patients suffered from diarrhea and dehydration, but there was little saline for intravenous drips. Dirty water, a cause of cholera, was a major problem, he said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said access to clean drinking water and outbreaks of communicable diseases such as dengue and malaria were a "big concern" a week after the disaster.

But frustration is mounting over the junta's delays in giving visas to foreign disaster experts and its determination to control the distribution of foreign aid inside the country.

"This is the second disaster," Greg Beck, Southeast Asia program director for the International Rescue Committee.

"First was the cyclone and the surge of water, the second will come if there is no access to food, water and shelter. They will start dying," he said.