World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday stressed the need for restoration of health facilities damaged by the 25 April earthquake.
"One month since the earthquake, we know that the disaster is far from over," said Poonam Khetrapal, WHO's regional director, in a press statement. "With the monsoons fast approaching, there are more challenges ahead – to urgently restore primary health care services, even temporarily, provide water-proof medical tents, essential medicines and keep a strict vigil on any disease outbreak."
WHO said that managing the injured, providing rehabilitation support to those discharged from the hospitals and psychosocial support to the affected population as well as ensuring the regular services for maternal and child care, communicable diseases such as TB are its ongoing priorities.
"The challenge is to address all the issues before the rainy season," reads the statement.
WHO said it has stationed District Support Officers in the 14 highly affected districts to coordinate response and strengthen disease surveillance. Deployment of more than 100 Foreign Medical Teams (FMTs) that came to Nepal to support emergency response is also being planned with partners and Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP), reads the statement.
"We are committed to support Nepal's health system to deliver life-saving and essential services to its people and build back resilient health facilities that will be safe in emergencies," said Singh.
The earthquake damaged 26 hospitals, and more than 1100 health facilities and 90 per cent of the health facilities outside the main towns were rendered non-functional.