GENEVA, Jan 6 (AFP) - The UN health agency on Thursday raised its cash appeal to ward off health threats to tsunami victims in south Asia to 66 million dollars, as it urged vigilance against outbreaks of disease.
The ten percent increase in the appeal came a day after the World Health Organisation warned that about 150,000 people were at "extreme risk" of disease unless they receive reliable clean water supplies and shelter swiftly.
The number of people who could catch diarrhoeal or respiratory illnesses could match the death toll in the catastrophe, currently about 146,000, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said.
"These illnesses are not deadly if one has access to the necessary treatment," she told AFP. "But they can become fatal in the situation that people are in in the devastated areas."
The WHO said in a statement Thursday that its main effort would focus on setting up an early warning system for disease outbreaks.
There have been "no major outbreaks of disease" in the hardest hit area, Indonesia's province of Aceh, "although there are cases of diarrhoea, respiratory infections, skin diseases and clear physical and mental trauma", the agency said.
Many homeless people there were living in relatively small camps, making them less exposed to the risk of respiratory and other infections, although "the risk of water-borne and other diseases continues", it added.
After a visit to Aceh, the WHO's Director General, Lee Jong Wook, said one hospital was planning to reopen at least its emergency service on Thursday.
At least half the staff there had been affected by the tsunami while, in another local hospital, injured people were being treated lying on mats by medical staff working with only basic equipment.
Millions of water purification tablets have been sent to south Asia. The WHO said Wednesday that access to drinking water was insufficent, especially in Aceh and in Sri Lanka.
01/06/2005 13:57 GMT - AFP