World health agency warns of high disease risk in China's earthquake region

Conditions in China's earthquake zone are ripe for outbreaks of disease, and quick action to supply clean water and good hygiene facilities to millions of survivors is necessary, the World Health Organization said Sunday.

"The main needs now are water, sanitation and food," said Hans Troedsson, WHO's representative to China, six days after the massive tremor reduced large parts of Sichuan province to rubble.

"Ensuring supply of food and safe drinking water and trying to restore good sanitation are critical because these are basic transmission routes for communicable diseases," he said.

China has said that over 4 million homes or apartments were destroyed in the earthquake and there was inadequate water supply in 20 cities and counties. Thousands of people are camped out in the streets, sheltering under plastic sheets between trees or pieces of rubble.

Shortages of drinkable fluids are among relief officials' main concerns. Water has been trucked in, with villagers lining up for hours with buckets, kettles and pots. Helicopters have also dropped packages of drinking water to stranded villages.

In Dujiangyan, about an hour's drive west of Chengdu, tap water was restored to at least parts of the city by Sunday. Officials also had started to move people out of increasingly squalid temporary shelters into better shelters that provide showers and drinking water.

WHO said that although distressing for survivors, dead bodies still in the open do not pose a major health risk. The agency urged authorities to concentrate on the basics of water, food and shelter.

"There is no public health threat from dead bodies and this misapprehension causes unnecessary diversion of staff and resources at a critical time," Dr. Arturo Pesigan, WHO's technical officer for emergency and humanitarian action in the Western Pacific region, said in a statement.

Diseases transmitted through dirty water are among the biggest concerns. Cholera, which spreads quickly in areas with poor sanitation, is one major concern the Ministry of Health mentioned in a notice on its Web site Sunday.

There have been no major epidemics or other public health hazards in the earthquake area, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the ministry.

Two field hospitals with 400 beds have been set up in isolated areas and medical staff have reached all townships affected by the quake, Xinhua said.

However, Vice Minister of Agriculture Wei Chao'an said 12.5 million animals, including poultry and livestock, had also died in the earthquake. "The biggest task is to prevent the spread of epidemic diseases between humans and animals," he said.

Dead animals can contaminate food and water supplies, he said.

The disaster effort appeared to switch in focus Sunday from rescuing survivors to clearing the dead and controlling the risk of disease.

The French group Doctors Without Borders, which has sent 25 specialists to the area, said Friday that most pharmacies in the earthquake area were destroyed and there was a shortage of medicine and drinking water.

___

Associated Press Writer Christopher Bodeen contributed to this report from Dujiangyan