Aid agencies warn of water borne disease in Burma
Updated
Aid agencies want countries to continue to pressure Burma's military junta to open its doors, not only to food, medicine and shelter, but also to the experts who have the know-how to prevent major disease outbreaks.
Presenter: Peter Cave
Speaker: Sarah Ireland, regional director of Oxfam; Samson Jeyarkumar, World Vision spokesperson
PETER CAVE: Burma's generals strutted before the cameras over the weekend casting their votes in a referendum that most of the outside world, including the Australian Government, regard as nothing more nor less than a sham designed to entrench military rule.
Most government business including the issuing of visas has been halted for days, and as Burmese television showed pictures of members of the junta in their distinctive slouch hats handing out parcels to victims of the cyclone most experts who could provide real help were cooling their heels in places like Bangkok in neighbouring Thailand.
SARAH IRELAND: We're afraid that there's a real potential risk of public, massive public health catastrophe waiting to happen.
PETER CAVE: Sarah Ireland is the regional director of the charity Oxfam, which is a world authority in providing clean drinking water in the wake of tragedies like the one underway in Burma.
She says a relief effort on the scale of the one launched after the Pakistan Earthquake in 2005 is needed.
SARAH IRELAND: It's a perfect storm, if you will, of factors such as lack of water, sanitation, predicted heavy rain over the next week, lack of food as well as an outbreak of disease such as cholera, that could all combine to endanger lives of up to 1.5 million people.
PETER CAVE: Oxfam says it can't get into Burma because the regime won't issue it with a licence to operate there or give its experts entry visas. She says not all the help though is high tech.
SARAH IRELAND: Something as basic as a bucket is in scarce supply. So, if people don't have things to put the water in in order to make sure it's clean and safe, then that's very difficult. We've got some, lots of buckets on stand by in our warehouse in Dubai, and we'd really like access to be able to send them in.
PETER CAVE: Australia has become one of the biggest donors to the international appeal for Burma with an offer of $25 million and there are no shortages of volunteers, food, shelter and medicines on the doorstep.
The main thing standing between is the goodwill of the world community and 1.5 million human beings in desperate need, are a group of unelected generals cosseted away in their isolated capital of Naypyidaw who seem more concerned about clinging to absolute control and power than the plight of their people or the opinion of the rest of the world.
