Pakistan’s health system badly hit by flood

PAKISTAN’S medical system has been badly hit by weeks of flooding, with hundreds of health facilities damaged and tens of thousands of medical workers displaced, the prime minister said yesterday as the country braced for the spread of disease.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s announcement came as Pakistan’s chief meteorologist warned that it would be two weeks until the Indus River – the focus of the flooding – returns to normal levels.

Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry said high tides in the Arabian Sea would slow the drainage of the Indus into it. Those tides, he said, will begin changing on August 25.