Haiti - MSF Calls Relief Organizations for Clean Water and More Latrines

[sharon sanders]

snip

• Reassuring a population frightened by a disease that is completely unknown in the country, including by publicly communicating the low risk and positive benefits of having properly-run cholera treatment centers in close proximity to communities;
• Providing safe, chlorinated water to affected and at-risk communities nationwide, in addition to blanket distributions of soap;
• Building latrines and safely removing waste on a regular basis;

more....

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=4864&cat=press-release

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Haiti - MSF Calls Relief Organizations for Clean Water and More Latrines

- snip -

Medically, cholera is easy to prevent and treat. But in Haiti, it is proving impossible to control.

What Haiti needs to combat cholera is a functioning water and sewage system.

But no one--neither the water-and-sanitation "cluster" of organizations, nor UNICEF, nor DINEPA, the Haitian water and sanitation authority--has accomplished this.

So Haitians like Hauteau and his brother share a single public toilet with the other families on their block and find water any way they can. Hauteau's brother buys buckets of untreated water from a private company that brings a water truck through his neighborhood and adds chlorine. Hauteau said he sometimes buys bottled water, but couldn't afford to everyday, so he drank tap water--which gave him cholera.

Haiti's cholera outbreak is now a full-fledged humanitarian disaster, but at heart it is a management issue. If NGOs want to commit to an effective course of action and help end this epidemic, they will have to focus and coordinate their efforts rapidly and rigorously on the basic conditions that are sustaining it.

Read more

thanks to Crof

[sharon sanders]

Less than 38% of aid pledged to Haiti at March post quake meeting has been dispersed - Atlantic article

also from that same article......

What's Causing the Cholera Epidemic in Haiti? We Are


Nov 19 2010, 8:00 AM ET



snip

Haiti is colloquially known as the "Republic of NGOs." Over 10,000 organizations work in the country. In fact, Haiti has the second highest number of NGOs per capita in the world after India.

snip

The government is meanwhile strapped for cash, despite an ostensible influx of aid. Less than 38 percent of the aid pledged to Haiti at a post-quake donors conference in March has been disbursed. Most of it has gone to these NGOs, rather than the state.

snip

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Haiti - MSF Calls Relief Organizations for Clean Water and More Latrines

Haiti cholera response, funding called "inadequate"

Fri Nov 19, 2010

By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - The United Nations-led international response to Haiti's deadly cholera epidemic is "inadequate" and woefully short of funding, aid groups including the U.N.'s humanitarian agency said on Friday.

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"Despite the huge presence of international organizations in Haiti, the cholera response has to date been inadequate in meeting the needs of the population," Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said in a statement.

"There is no time left for meetings and debate - the time for action is now," MSF head of mission in Haiti Stefano Zannini said, calling on all groups and agencies to urgently ramp up their activities to fight the cholera outbreak.

...................................

Imogen Wall, spokeswoman for the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA, said the cholera response operation so far had received only a small fraction -- $5 million (?3.1 million) -- of the $164 million the United Nations had appealed for a week ago to fight the epidemic.

"The response is completely inadequate and in this situation where we are against the clock we urgently need support if we are going to save lives," she told Reuters.


Read more: Reuters