Victims of Pakistan's floods today queued at hospitals where scant resources were available to treat a rising number of patients.
Aid agencies fear disease, food shortages and malnutrition may create new crises as people head back to their shattered towns and villages to rebuild their homes and lives.
"Whatever stock of medicines we have is about to finish and the number of patients will increase in the coming days," said Ashiq Hussain Malik, medical superintendent of Muzaffargarh's main district hospital in Punjab province.
"Nearly 60 per cent of patients are suffering from gastroenteritis, diarrhoea, skin and eye infections and the patients who are coming here are in a pretty bad condition."
The United Nations has warned of imminent waterborne diseases, including typhoid fever, shigellosis and hepatitis A and E, and vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever.
Some Pakistanis have grown increasingly angry with the sluggish government response, and are turning to Islamist charities, some of them tied to militant groups.
The US State Department says it has been told of a threat from Islamist militants to foreign aid workers, complicating the already extremely difficult task of relief and reconstruction.
Aid agencies are warning that with so much farmland under water in a country which is heavily dependent on agriculture the crisis in Pakistan could persist for months.
At least 3.2 million hectares, about 14 per cent of Pakistan's entire cultivated land, have been damaged.
"In magnitude and scope this is one of the greatest catastrophes which the WFP has had to handle," said Josette Sheerer, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP) after visiting flood-hit areas in south Punjab.
"We could be looking at a year of food shortages and high food prices." Muzaffargarh hospital is treating 1,000 flood victims. People lay on the floor or their own rope beds because of limited space.
"I came to hospital around dawn and I'm still waiting for my number," Naseem Bibi said as her five-year-old daughter, suffering from diarrhoea, slept on the ground.
Pakistan may face long-term economic pain because of the floods.
Economic growth, forecast at 4.5 per cent this fiscal year, is now predicted at anything between zero and 3 per cent. More aid is flowing but more is needed.
Arch-rival India decided to increase its assistance to Pakistan from $5 million to $25 million, its foreign minister told the Indian parliament today.
Reuters