Skin disease a concern among local people in Arakan State

By Admin 02 Sep 2024

DMG Newsroom
2 September 2024, Ponnagyun

Some people in Ponnagyun, Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U and Pauktaw townships, Arakan State, are reportedly suffering from skin diseases and are in need of medicine.

Skin disease can occur at any age, and various forms of symptoms such as body itching, red spots, and blisters are occurring.

“Displaced people suffer from skin diseases due to overcrowding in displacement camps, lack of clean drinking water, and poor personal hygiene. But people from outside the displacement camps are more likely to have skin diseases due to poor water and allergies,” said a health worker in Kyauktaw Township.

The incidence of skin disease varies from region to region, and it is more contagious in densely populated areas. The health community urges people to take care of personal hygiene.

The number of people with skin diseases is increasing in the Ahtet Myat Hle and Pan Nilar displacement camps in Ponnagyun Township, and many are forced to use only traditional ointments due to the lack of medicine.

“I applied medicine and took medicine, but it disappeared only for a while. If you squeeze the area where the skin disease is and the liquid comes out, the rash will grow again,” said an IDP in Ponnagyun Township.

Foreign-made ointments are scarce and exorbitantly priced, if available at all.

“Recently, people with skin diseases have increased in our village. It can even be said that almost all villagers have skin diseases. People with skin diseases have no medicine to treat them, so they bathe in hot water and apply traditional ointments,” said a local woman from Ashae Phayonekar Island in Pauktaw Township.

The health community said that after the cyclonic storm “Mocha,” which made landfall in Arakan State in May 2023, some people have been suffering from skin diseases with symptoms such as itching.

The locals in Arakan State are facing difficulties in terms of health as they are facing a shortage of medicines due to junta blockades.