The Korean Medical Association (KMA) sent the Medical Team, so called the Korean Emergency Aid Team (KEMAT) to Pakistan on October 14, 2005, a week after the earthquake. The KMA is planning to continue to dispatch 2nd and 3rd medical teams to earthquake-affected areas in Pakistan and they will provide medical treatments to injured people in turn through mid-November.

The 1st team composed of 25 personnel including 9 doctors, 4 nurses, 2 medical students, 6 administrative staff, 4 reporters set its base camp at the Ayub Medical Complex in Abbottabad. Abbottabad is located at the entrance to Muzaffarabad, Balakhot and Mansehra, which are the most severely affected areas. Among 9 medical doctors, two orthopedists were included in consideration of patient-distribution by earthquake, and among 6 administrative staff, three experts voluntarily joined from Korean Alpine Federation. Severely injured patients, in Muzaffarabad, Balakhot and Mansehra, were being evacuated to Islamabad, Lahore and Abbottabad. Pakistani doctors and other medical teams from US and UK were also dispatched to the Ayub Medical Complex to offer medical practices to emergency patients in time.

The KEMAT provided with medical treatments mainly in following three ways: 1) conducting major reconstructive surgeries like open fracture at the operation room of the complex in collaboration with Pakistani doctors, 2) running makeshift clinic at the premises of the complex, treating patients in need of dressing, suturing, and minor surgeries, 3) mobilizing one small medical group to Balakot. The 1st team treated 150 patients on average including 2~3 major surgeries for fractures in femoral regions at the beginning of their activities. More and more patients from nearby affected areas came to see doctors in the meantime and the number of patients became doubled after 4~5 days. Among them, we could find some refugees from Afghanistan who have stayed in Balakot since the invasion of Soviet Union and civil war for 23 years in Afghanistan. They lost once again everything by this earthquake.

On the 7th day of the activities, series of strong aftershock hit those areas and Ayub Medical Complex was shut down out of fear for additional collapse. All of the patients in this complex were forced to move to provisional rooms made of tents. However, aftershocks could not block KEMAT to provide medical treatments to those in need of it. The 1st team has treated approximately 1,300 patients at Ayub Medical Center including major and minor surgeries and around 300 patients at its mobile clinic in Balakot so far.

KEMAT is also taking preventive measures to disinfect contaminated areas around the center and around refugee camps using smoke disinfector twice in the morning and afternoon everyday. In the wake of preventive measures, KEMAT distributed 1,000 sets of sanitary pack composed of soaps, toothpastes and toothbrushes.

Major public health concerns at this stage, two weeks after the quake, at Abbottabad are scabies and ARI (Acute Respiratory Infections). Some cases of pseudomonas have been found, so the 2nd and 3rd teams are expected to bring in the anti-scabies drugs and antibiotics.

The members of 1st team who served from October 14 to 23 are as follows: