Fatal accident as health workers flee Burma army

Mizzima News
April 4, 2008

Chiang Mai – Five people are hospitalized with severe burns, and a seven year-old girl is dead, as the vehicle they were riding in to escape army troops overturned on a steep hillside in eastern Burma.

The incident resulted as members of a joint Displaced Persons Response Network (DPRN) and Karen Department of Health & Welfare (KDHW) mission procured transportation away from advancing Burmese army troops operating in close proximity to where teams were providing education on and vaccination against polio.

According to a DPRN report, a tractor and cart were taking two female KDHW staff to their village inside Lu Pleh Township of Karen state when the accident occurred. "While traveling to the village the tractor passed through a large burn area. It is believed the driver became confused in the heat and smoke, and overturned the tractor on the steep hillside, spilling the occupants into the fire," states DPRN.

Those involved in the accident were part of a larger mission to vaccinate internally displaced people in Burma from polio in Lu Pleh Township, Paีan District. The endeavor was, however, brought to a halt only two days into operations as word came to the teams of the presence of Burmese army troops in the region.

Healthcare workers, after successfully vaccinating 82 children in one village on March 28, were forced to conceal their medicine and health records and flee to the jungle ahead of approaching Burmese army troops. Three other teams were obligated to act likewise, as similar reports of oncoming army units reached them.

The five burn victims, all taken to Mae Sot General Hospital just across the border in Thailand, are listed as: the driver, age 33, burns to 100 percent of the body; his son, age 9, with burns to 60 percent of his body; a village healthcare worker, 15 years old, with burns to 75 percent of the body; and two female healthcare workers with KDHW, both age 18, with burns to 90 percent and 75 percent of their bodies, respectively.

The driver's seven year-old daughter perished at the scene of the accident from burns suffered.

Prior to the tragic episode, the joint undertaking was able to teach village healthcare workers how to vaccinate against polio and fill out polio vaccination records. In one village, a day before the accident, a team successfully vaccinated nearly 200 children.

Each of the burn victims is expected to recover except for the driver, whose condition is unknown prior to a scheduled operation.

This latest round of vaccinations was the second phase of a DPRN program, the initial phase having commenced in Hpa-an District in December of last year. That portion of the program was successfully completed in February, vaccinating 1,200 internally displaced children.

In 2007, over a dozen cases of polio were reported in Burma, the first such incidences in five years. If vaccinated, polio is preventable.