Maungdaw, Arakan State: Waterborne diseases like dysentery, pneumonia and diarrhea have broken out in Maungdaw since August last week, according to Maungdaw villagers.

The health department of the Burmese government is distributing some medicines and oral saline, but it is not sufficient. Most of the medicines have been bought by patients from shops out side. There are about 200 people afflicted with diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia in every village and most of the patients have been admitted to the Maungdaw general hospital, according to sources.

Yesterday an elder and a child died in Maung Nama village in Maungdaw north while four patients died in Shweza village in Maungdaw north including Majeda Begum (25), mother of three children. There have been deaths in other villages, as well, said a village quack on condition of anonymity.

Nayapara village in Maungdaw Town and Myint Hlut, Inn Din, and Kul-loon (Thinn Baw Gwe) villages are the affected areas in Maungdaw south. Today, a medical team from Maungdaw which led by general Hospital will visit the effected areas of Maungdaw south and take necessary action, sources said.

At night, patients are not able to go to clinics or private doctors' clinics for treatment for security reasons.  If a patient willing to go out from home at night for treatment, he/she must be accompanied by a woman and other relatives with a lamp.  So, patients do not go out at night for treatment, unless the condition of the patient is critical, said a relative of a patient.

Many villagers including women and children are suffering from diarrhea, dysentery and vomiting and Typhoid. The patients are vomiting, have high fever and loose motion.

"The medical teams visit the affected area for short time in day time and people don't get any medical facility when they face trouble at night. If the patients' condition become serious, they are helpless and die during this period," said Mohamed Anno, a local elder from Maungdaw.

Doctors from Maungdaw Town visited the affected areas.  They gathered some of the local villagers and advised them to drink clean and boiled water and gave oral saline to the patients.  They also said that the diseases occur from malnutrition.