A decline in the number of health workers in Homalin Township, Sagaing Region has made it impossible to implement health education and disease prevention measures in the township, leaving people more susceptible to seasonal illnesses.

Homalin Township is home to around 250,000 people. Previously, before the coup, it had 21 doctors, 43 nurses, and 11 assistant health officers, but now it has only 7 doctors, 17 nurses, and 4 assistant health officers

A local health care official said: “Dengue fever used to be common mostly in children, but from early this month we have been seeing it in adults too. In the past, we ran awareness campaigns about dengue fever here in Homalin Township. We would clean up places like stagnant ponds where mosquitoes could breed. But now, there are very few health workers left to lead these activities. Especially in the rural areas of Homalin Township, the number of health workers is really low.”

There are around 370 villages in Homalin Township, with 14 rural clinic centres with 57 branches. However, since 2022, nearly all of them have been closed because of various challenges.

During the current scorching heat of the hot season, many children in Homalin Township are struggling with diarrhoea.

A resident of Homalin Township said: “We're seeing three or four children coming into the clinics every day with diarrhoea, caused by things like the intense summer heat, unsafe water, and eating contaminated food.”

Previously health workers would travel to every village in the township once a year to conduct educational activities about seasonal illnesses. But now, all those educational activities have stopped due to a lack of health education staff.

Even before, when the educational campaigns were still being carried out, outbreaks of seasonal illnesses occurred. Now the campaigns have stopped, such outbreaks will only get worse, according to warnings from health care officials. They said that once there is an outbreak of such illnesses due to a lack of early preventative measures, managing such outbreaks often becomes a major challenge.

To make matters worse,  the price of essential medicines in Homalin Township, including those used to treat seasonal diseases, are currently very high because they have to come in by air.