According to the organization “Doctors of the World”, more than five weeks after the earthquake disaster, respiratory diseases and scabies are the most pressing health problems in south-eastern Turkey. The itch mite is difficult to fight because people live in a confined space, said Günter Fröschl, board member of the organization “Doctors of the World”, the German Press Agency. The skin disease, which is accompanied, among other things, by severe itching, is also highly contagious. “The treatment would only go well if the entire tent city was treated,” he said. You really have to do a mass treatment, but this is difficult, especially in remote villages.
The doctor from Munich is currently traveling with a team in the province of Hatay. The team primarily drives to villages in the mountains near the Syrian border. Many Syrian refugees and poorer people from Turkey have fled there. The villages have grown by a multiple of their actual population. Some of the people lived tightly packed in tents or in containers.
It is generally damp and cold. “A third of the people we treat have respiratory problems: fever, sore throat, up to pneumonia,” said Fröschl. The team also includes employees who come from the earthquake area themselves. “I find it amazing how people get involved here, even though they themselves are badly affected,” says the doctor.
