Haiti - Cholera: Fact Sheet #4, Fiscal Year (FY) 2011
This factsheet provides an overview of humanitarian assistance to address widespread cholera outbreak in Haiti. To meet evolving humanitarian needs, USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) continues to deliver emergency relief commodities and medical supplies to Haiti to ensure an uninterrupted flow of required materials. USAID/OFDA's enhanced commodity pipeline includes forward deployment of supplies to the USAID/OFDA warehouse in Miami and consistent commodity deliveries to Haiti through the end of January. On November 26, a USAID/OFDA flight carrying decontamination equipment for use in medical facilities, including cholera treatment centers (CTCs) and units (CTUs), arrived in Port-au-Prince. The shipment included buckets, aprons, scrub brushes, sprayers, aprons, gloves, and biohazard bags. USAID/OFDA is preparing a second shipment of decontamination equipment. ? On November 26, USAID/OFDA authorized the distribution of all emergency relief commodities pre-positioned at four locations throughout Haiti for hurricane preparedness. The commodities'which include hygiene kits, water containers, and blankets'will be distributed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for use in the cholera response. USAID/OFDA is also sending an additional 7,860 hygiene kits from the USAID/OFDA warehouse in Miami to Port-au-Prince for distribution. ? In the coming days, USAID/OFDA will deliver additional quantities of oral rehydration salts (ORS), water purification tablets, and other commodities. USAID/OFDA staff continue to procure supplies'including 600,000 liters of Ringer's lactate and 300 metric tons of soap'and schedule flights to transport the materials. ? During the week of November 29, a team of USAID/OFDA logisticians will deploy to Haiti to conduct an assessment of emergency relief commodity pipelines into and within Haiti. The team will determine supply chain gaps and ways to strengthen warehouse and delivery methods to ensure that medical supplies reach facilities in affected and at-risk areas quickly, including hard-to-reach rural areas. ? On November 23 and 25, Haitian President Ren' Pr'val chaired the meetings of the Health Cluster'the coordinating body for relief agencies' health interventions'and underscored Government of Haiti (GoH) commitment to working closely with relief agencies to facilitate the cholera response, the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team (USAID/DART) reports. Health Cluster members report that the 30-day customs clearance waiver currently in place has facilitated importation of medical supplies, according to the USAID/DART.