United Nations Radio

A comprehensive field assessment of conditions in Myanmar after Cyclone Nargis, will allow UN agencies to track progress in the country.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the UN will be able to track over the next year how the people are doing, how quickly or slowly improvements occurred and when they reach the conditions they enjoyed just before the cyclone struck.

Richard Garfield of WHO's Health and Nutrition tracking Service says the findings of the assessment show the people of Myanmar had good access to health services, with 80 per cent having a health facility available within an hour of their homes.

"But although there was a physician site available the services had gone down radically. Immunizations, pre-natal care and delivery care had all dropped since the cyclone."

Garfield says seven weeks after the cyclone the emergency health needs had gone and although services had gone down, there were a lot more health workers in the affected regions.

This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.

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