Hanif Samoon Updated April 01, 2018
MITHI: Another six infants died in Thar over the past two days because of viral infection and malnutrition, hospital sources said on Saturday.
The babies were under treatment at Civil Hospital Mithi and other government-run health facilities. The number of children who died in March under similar circumstances reached 47.
According to sources, the parents concerned complained about the lack of facilities, including the shortage of life-saving drugs, in the government-run hospitals. They called upon the high-ups to provide medicines at basic health units in their villages so that they did not have to travel for miles to reach the Mithi hospital in scorching heat along with their babies.
Despite repeated attempts, neither the district health officer nor civil surgeon of civil hospital Mithi could be contacted for comment.
Earlier, the Sindh government had directed the local health officials not to share any details with journalists after the chief justice of Pakistan took suo motu notice of deaths of five children in the Mithi hospital in April last year.
Health and nutrition experts in Thar believe that malnutrition, poverty, frequent droughts and child marriages are the main factors behind the babies’ deaths.