“You look so old!” one told another.

“Oh, my God. You were ugly before, and you’re still ugly!” another told the first.

When Ken Barasch recalls a lifetime working to improve health care access and outcomes in Fiji, many of the memories warm his heart. The scuba instructor whose hand and arm, badly damaged during an accident, were successfully repaired by a prominent reconstructive surgeon. The fisherman whose severe cataracts, as well as lung problems, were preventing him from earning a living, until the Savusavu Community Foundation, Barasch’s nonprofit, arranged surgery and treatment for him. The girl from a remote island whose family brought her in, covered in boils and barely breathing, to a local clinic. After two days of treatment, “she was walking around,” Barasch recalled. “She’s gone on to a successful career.”

The three sisters, who’d gone years without seeing one another clearly, make him chuckle.

Barasch and his wife, Donna, didn’t travel to Fiji planning to start a nonprofit, or to devote their lives to bringing more medicine, health care, education, or climate resiliency projects to the island nation.

But in 1990, after several years of vacationing in Fiji, they noticed that many of the locals were missing teeth. Cloudy eyes, where the bright sun reflecting off the sparkling water and sand had caused cataracts, were common.

“Everything was not so perfect in what seemed to be this idyllic country,” Barasch remembered. “The most frequent dental appliance was a freely wielded pair of pliers.”

While Fiji’s Ministry of Health and Medical Services was dedicated to improving health outcomes in the country through what Barasch estimated were about 220 health centers and stations throughout the country, there were often shortages of medical equipment, supplies, and providers in hospitals and clinics. People in rural areas and on smaller islands, where the nearest clinic was often a boat trip away, had a harder time accessing health care.

The Barasches formed a registered nonprofit, the Savusavu Community Foundation, and began focusing on health care. At first, the foundation’s work centered on dental care and cataract surgery and prevention.

“The more we went, the more I realized there was a need for other kinds of care in Fiji,” Barasch said. Reproductive health care, eye exams and glasses, chronic disease monitoring and treatment, and specialized surgery were all widely needed.

So Savusavu Community Foundation branched out, building and shoring up medical facilities, bringing in doctors to conduct clinics and surgical missions, and finding partners who could donate medicines and treatments, equipment and supplies. That’s when they came across Direct Relief, Ken recalled.

“I met this fellow on a Saturday, and left with four giant boxes of hand equipment” for dentistry, he recalled.

Soon, Barasch said, he was outfitting three major Fijian hospitals with equipment, medicine, and supplies from Direct Relief. Fiji’s Ministry of Health and Medical Services asked if he could scale up, equipping hospitals and health facilities throughout the country.

Anytime the foundation received a medical request — for example, a Fijian hospital searching for a specialized oncology drug — “my first call is always to Direct Relief,” Ken said.

Today, the Savusavu Community Foundation is expanded yet further. Donations pay for classrooms and school libraries, books and teachers’ salaries, hygienic community kitchens (Barasch explained that it’s common for women in rural communities to cook outside in the wind and rain). The foundation works to rehabilitate marine ecosystems, build filtered water systems, and promote and preserve Fijian culture.

But health care remains integral to their mission. Barasch is proud of procuring Covid-19 vaccines during the height of the pandemic and providing meals to quarantined households who had no way to pay for food. Education and treatment have improved chronic disease rates, dental health, and other significant health issues. Until the very end, the foundation worked to supply solar refrigerators and freezers to villages that don’t have electricity, so that patients with diabetes could safely store their insulin.

At the end of his career, early in 2025, Barasch was honored with the Order of Fiji for his support of Fijian health. Jeremaia Mataika, head of Fiji Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Services, wrote of Barasch’s “immense work” and the “respected space” he holds in bringing support to Fiji’s health system in his letter of recommendation.

Barasch, severely ill, decided to retire this year. Because running the Savusavu Community Foundation requires him to spend 60 hours of unpaid work each week, he said finding a replacement to fill his shoes was impossible. “It’s a lot of work and a lot of stress,” he said, even though it brings “a lot of joy.”

The only question was what to do with the remaining funds. “When you close a foundation, you have to zero it out,” Barasch explained.

He donated the remaining balance from the foundation, a total of $110,000, to Direct Relief.

“Direct Relief has been our number one partner for two decades,” Barasch said. “Whatever Direct Relief wants to use it for, I completely trust their decision-making.”

For Genevieve Bitter, Direct Relief’s vice president of program operations, the donation is a vote of high confidence. “It speaks volumes,” she said. “He could have given it all to anybody…He’s witnessed what we’ve done for years.”

Barasch’s long-term relationship with the organization demonstrates the key importance of partnership, Bitter said: “With any successful partnership we have, we need to have a person like Ken, who is totally committed and dedicated.”

Gordon Willcock, Direct Relief’s Asia Pacific Regional Director, said that continuing support to Fiji is an ongoing priority — not just for the country alone, but for the region at large. “It’s a strategic country in the Pacific,” he explained. “It’s a hub and connector to other Pacific Island nations”

The prevalence of archipelagos and small, outlying island nations makes Oceania a difficult region logistically, Willcock explained. During disasters such as cyclones, responders in Fiji often receive and distribute medical materials and other emergency supplies to impacted areas.

“This all makes Fiji an important area of focus for us,” he said.

Barasch is hopeful that Fijian health will continue to improve. For example, he said, while Fijians eat fish and farm vegetables, their gardens tend to be filled with starchy root crops. More education and outreach might persuade Fijian gardeners to grow spinach and other greens, carrots, beets, and other healthy vegetables.

Refrigeration for insulin is also a high priority, he said.

Bitter and Willcock are planning to travel to Fiji in April, to discuss support strategy with local officials and communities.

“It is an island nation, and there are so many rural and remote communities,” Bitter said. Vulnerability to storms — Fiji receives a large cache of Direct Relief emergency supplies each year — complicates the already high need and large number of small villages. “We want to make sure we have this continuity in donations.”

Since 2008, Direct Relief has supported the Savusavu Community Foundation with $29.9 million in material medical aid, part of a total of $159.6 million in medical support to healthcare working in Fiji.

The post A Fiji Nonprofit Began with Eye Surgeries and Dental Care. Now Its Director Is Passing the Torch. appeared first on Direct Relief.

The signing ceremony, held in Brunei, was part of the 44th Meeting of the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management and the 20th Meeting of the Governing Board of the AHA Center, which brought together the heads of the national disaster management agencies of all 10 ASEAN member states.

ASEAN, which stands for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

. ASEAN member countries combined have a population of 640 million people, and these 10 countries sit on or near the “Ring of Fire,” the zone around the Pacific Ocean that is prone to natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Direct Relief CEO and President Thomas Tighe and the Executive Director of the AHA Center, Lee Yam Ming, signed the memorandum of intent, which renews the longstanding strategic partnership between the two organizations, first signed in 2016.

“The partnership between the AHA Center and Direct Relief will bolster the facility’s response capacity in the ASEAN region,” said Lee Yam Ming, Executive Director of the AHA Center. “Through this partnership, we continuously expand and broaden our collaboration in preparedness, response, and recovery initiatives. The AHA Center is looking forward to working together with Direct Relief in realizing ASEAN as a disaster-resilient region.”

“Because of the region’s risk exposure to natural disasters, including some of the most intense earthquakes and tsunamis on record, Direct Relief stands ready to respond in coordination with the AHA Center at a moment’s notice,” said Thomas Tighe, Direct Relief CEO and President. “Today’s event signifies Direct Relief’s commitment to building on the past eight years of cooperation with the AHA Center, as well as a vision of future support in the region to help those most impacted by disasters and crises.”

Since 2008, Direct Relief has delivered more than $387 million in medical materials across ASEAN member states. Since the 2016 signing, Direct Relief has also provided $1.187 million in grant funding for the procurement and prepositioning of emergency supplies, for the reconstruction of health infrastructure, for capacity building, for AHA regional training, and for various other AHA-led programs.

In addition to regular donations of medicines and medical supplies, Direct Relief has mobilized and launched major organizational responses to disasters in the region, including the Indian Ocean Tsunami (Indonesia, 2004), Cyclone Nargis (Myanmar, 2008), Typhoon Haiyan (The Philippines, 2013), Sulawesi and Lombok earthquakes (Indonesia, 2018) and Covid-19 pandemic response throughout Southeast Asia.

Direct Relief and the AHA Center have also coordinated emergency preparedness efforts, including the pre-positioning of emergency medical supplies at ASEAN disaster supply warehouses in Malaysia and the Philippines, joint participation in emergency response exercises and policy dialogues, funding for AHA-led initiatives, information sharing, data analysis, mapping, and collaboration during large-scale emergency response operations in Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos.

The post Direct Relief Renews Commitment to ASEAN Region, Building on Strength of Past Partnership appeared first on Direct Relief.

The shipments contained 6.7 million defined daily doses of medication and supplies, including insulin, prenatal vitamins, oral rehydration tablets, and more.

After Flooding, Kenya Prepares for Cyclone

In Kenya, heavy rains and flash floods have left more than 200 people dead, dozens missing, and over 150,000 people displaced across Nairobi, Makueni, West Pokot and Machakos counties according to the National Disaster Operations Center. Heavy rains have inundated the country since March, and the country is bracing for landfall from Cyclone Hidaya, expected to make landfall Friday in Kenya and Tanzania, where flooding fatalities have also continued to rise into the hundreds.

Flooding and resulting displacement can cause a host of health problems, including limited access to clean drinking water, the proliferation of water- and vector-borne illnesses, power outages, and damaged infrastructure that can limit travel to receive medical care. Those who are displaced from their homes may also face compounding health issues, as they may be cut off from medications and equipment needed to manage chronic conditions, including diabetes, which can escalate into crisis and the need for emergency care.

Direct Relief has a long history of support to Kenya, and has provided more than $40 million in medical support to health facilities across the country. This includes general medical support, insulin for patients managing diabetes, and rare disease therapies. Kenyatta National Hospital is one hospital that has received this medical support from Direct Relief in the past, and the organization is in communication with the hospital about medical needs resulting from flooding and the cyclone’s impacts. Direct Relief is also in contact with the Kenyan Red Cross Society to support their emergency medical outreach and search and rescue teams. Direct Relief also has supported medical facilities in Tanzania with more than $74 million in medical aid, including during times of disaster, such as Cyclone Idai in 2019.

Direct Relief will continue to monitor the storm’s impacts on communities in Kenya and Tanzania and respond to requests for medical support as they become known.

Supporting Health Resilience in Jamaica Ahead of Hurricane Season

Direct Relief this week announced a US$3 million grant to Jamaica as part of its ongoing commitment to bolstering resilience in the Caribbean region. This contribution, which will support the installation of a large solar energy system at a central primary pharmaceutical distribution facility, comes as part of the organization’s renewal of its ongoing partnership with the island nation, aimed at strengthening healthcare systems and infrastructure in the face of natural disasters and other emergencies.

Direct Relief staff met with members of Jamaica’s Ministry of Health and Wellness to tour the National Health Fund Pharmaceutical Distribution Facility and visit local health centers. A Memorandum of Understanding was also signed to continue the flow of medical aid and support to the nation’s health system.

Jamaica, like many other nations in the Caribbean, faces unique challenges in maintaining healthcare access, particularly in the wake of natural disasters such as hurricanes. Direct Relief’s grant seeks to address these challenges by supporting initiatives that enhance emergency preparedness, expand access to essential medical supplies and equipment, and fortify healthcare infrastructure.

Haleon Staff Support Building of Personal Care Packs

Over the past three months, Direct Relief has partnered with Haleon staff to pack 5,300 personal care kits, which include basic hygiene items like soap, shampoo, and dental care products, across nine locations. Local organizations who received these kits, including NeoMed Center, Inc. and Corporación La Fondita de Jesús, attended these events to share more about their work within the community with the Haleon team.

The kits have been distributed to local organizations working with migrant and refugee populations, people experiencing homelessness, or others in need of basic personal care items.

Operational Snapshot

WORLDWIDE

Over the last week, Direct Relief shipped more than 5.8 million defined daily doses of medication outside the U.S.

Countries that received medical aid over the past week included:

UNITED STATES

Direct Relief delivered 552 shipments containing almost two tons of medications during the past seven days to organizations, including the following:

YEAR TO DATE

Since January 1, 2024, Direct Relief has delivered 7,932 shipments to 1,591 partner organizations in 54 U.S. states and territories and 69 countries.

These shipments contained 125.6 million defined daily doses of medication totaling 2.4 million lbs.

IN THE NEWS

Kee Cha-E-Nar Corporation Receives $250k from Direct Relief’s Fund for Health Equity – The Yurok Tribe

Health Sector Receives US$3 Million from Direct Relief – Jamaica Information Service

Midwifery in the Era of Climate Change: Lessons from the wildfires in Maui – International Confederation of Midwives

Direct Relief Supporting Family Health in Ukraine – Angels in Medicine

Direct Relief Donates US$3 Million to Health Sector – Philanthropy News Digest

Direct Relief Donates $3 Million to Strengthen Jamaica’s Health System – Caribbean National Weekly

Expanding Hope: A New Dawn in Dnipro – Levitate

The post Preparing for Cyclone Hidaya in Kenya as Medical Aid Departs for 13 Countries This Week appeared first on Direct Relief.

Even as the storms have brought acute challenges to the nation, they have also exacerbated preexisting vulnerabilities, particularly concerning the power grid, according to Léa Rahajatiana, deputy director of biomedical services for Pivot, a nonprofit that helps support the government-run healthcare system in Madagascar’s Ifanadiana district. Pivot provides training to clinical staff members, sourcing and financing certain hard-to-obtain medications and funding for other critical needs, amongst other forms of support. Pivot-supported clinics have seen over 1.3 million patient visits since 2014.

Access to power remains an ongoing concern in Ifanadiana, which is located about 260 miles southeast of the capital, Antananarivo, and is home to about 200,000 people, most of whom work as farmers. Rahajatiana said power outages are most common during the rain and cyclone season, starting in November and extending into spring. These cuts can last for up to two weeks, she said.

“The hospital is not spared,” Rahajatiana said. Last year, amidst renovations that went on for two months, power outages occurred about every two days and could last up to 10 hours. Government-allocated fuel needed to run backup generators at the hospital run by Pivot is often insufficient to meet critical needs, Rahajatiana said. Per capita spending on health is among the lowest in the world.

A lack of power makes it impossible to perform just about all surgeries. The nearest hospital is 80 kilometers away. Without electricity, other impacts include patients being forced to use oxygen tanks instead of oxygen concentrators, which pull a continuous supply of oxygen from the air, and closing down the hospital laboratory’s blood bank, which also requires a constant supply of electricity.

To help maintain a steady supply of electricity, Pivot requested and recently received three portable solar generators from Direct Relief, and the units will power the hospital’s operating room, intensive care unit, maternity and neonatology ward, and blood bank. By installing these generators, the hospital will have reliable power during outages and will be able to mitigate the substantial fuel costs of powering diesel generators.

“It’ll simplify things so much,” said Amy Donahue, senior engagement officer at Pivot.

Access to electricity, especially in the wake of powerful storms, has been an increasing focus of safety net healthcare clinics worldwide as they seek to maintain operations. Notable mass blackouts have occurred in recent years across the entire island of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria and in several communities across Northern California following wildfires – some of which have been started by power companies. In recognition of this, Direct Relief has started to address this need when requested in Puerto Rico, California, New Orleans, North Carolina, and around the world by providing solar power generators and solar panels.

While having power at the hospital is critical for care, Donahue said it could also have tangential effects, such as helping draw more people to seek preventive care or care at earlier phases of illness since they will know the hospital at least has electricity. Donahue said some local residents perceive the hospital and clinics with trepidation, with some believing that healthcare clinics are “places where people go to die.”

Besides power, Rahajatiana and Donahue identified access to clean water and sheer geographical distance as additional issues Pivot is focused on mitigating. Seventy-five percent of the population in Ifanadiana lives at least a five-kilometer walk from the nearest health facility. There is only one paved road in the district.

In recognition of its ability to help improve health outcomes in Ifanadiana, Pivot is working with local officials to expand its services to the entire Vatovavy region, which Ifanadiana comprises one of three districts. This will increase Pivot’s patient population fivefold, from 200,000 to 1 million people, and geographic coverage will triple.

Even as those challenges endure, another storm season will arrive in a few months, and with it, power outages. Rahajatiana said solar power will enable doctors, nurses, and patients to focus on healing rather than electrical infrastructure issues.

With access to resilient power sources, clinicians will be more free to focus on their jobs – instead of having to plan for when lights go out.

“Hospital patients and services will no longer suffer from power cuts,” Rahajatiana said.

In addition to solar backup power units, Direct Relief has provided medication support to Pivot, including more than 215,000 defined daily doses of medication, since 2018.

The post Powering Critical Care in Rural Madagascar appeared first on Direct Relief.

“We were very worried about the intensity of the storm that was predicted, so we took on preparation,” said Dr. Iftikher Mahmood, Director and Founder of HOPE Foundation. “We secured our hospital as much as possible. We put together teams of doctors, nurses, midwives, support staff – and they all stayed during the storm to assist with patient care.”

Since August 2017, an unprecedented humanitarian emergency has unfolded in the region as hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have crossed the Myanmar border into neighboring Bangladesh. This mass migration has created what is now the world’s largest refugee camp forming in southern Bangladesh, between the Myanmar border and the Bay of Bengal.

Direct Relief’s long-time partner the HOPE Foundation, which is based in Cox’s Bazar and specializes in maternal and child health care, has established itself in the refugee camps of southern Bangladesh to provide care for expectant mothers using mobile clinics and the 24-hour field hospital, which has expanded HOPE’s capacity for care.

Sexual and reproductive health services are scarce, given the disproportionate number of women and expectant mothers in the camps. Obstetric surgery in these conditions is limited, so most women must be transported to local hospitals, but in the face of a catastrophic storm, such transport is highly unlikely, if even possible at all.

As the storm raged on, pregnant women arrived at the hospital in labor. The emergency team of staff were on hand to provide the care and support the mothers needed to deliver their babies safely.

“Between our two hospitals, we had several deliveries, including surgical c-sections,” Dr. Mahmood continued. “If we had shut down operations due to fear of the storm, these women could have been at major risk.”

Despite the challenging conditions, the hospital’s team of doctors, nurses, and support staff worked throughout to ensure that patient care continued despite the threat of the storm.

“Direct Relief has provided us emergency response packs for the past four or five years, so we have them as a resource,” said Dr. Mahmood. “Luckily, the storm diverted, and we did not sustain any major damage.”

In addition to the emergency response packs, Direct Relief has sent five shipments to Bangladesh over the last six months, which included 10 tons worth of insulin, prescription drugs, and medical supplies, as well as a shipment of requested medications to Myanmar.

HOPE Foundation will open their new hospital, a six-story facility that has served as a location for patient quarantine during the Covid-19 pandemic, and recently as a safe haven for critical patients in dangerous weather conditions.

Direct Relief has provided Hope Hospital for Women and Children with $6.6 million in medical aid, including medical essentials to equip midwives for healthy births, and provided more than $660,000 in grant funding.

The post With Cyclone Mocha Raging, Life Carries on at HOPE Hospital appeared first on Direct Relief.

The shipments contained 18.5 million defined daily doses of medication, including antibiotics, personal care products, surgical supplies, and more.

continued medical support for syria & Turkey

On May 9, 69 tons of requested medicine and medical supplies arrived in Adana, Turkey, for distribution to Syria in response to February’s earthquakes. The shipment arrived via a Direct Relief-chartered 747 cargo plane and will be received by three on-the-ground organizations in Syria: the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), Independent Doctors Association, and Syria Relief and Development. This is the third fully loaded charter flight of medical aid Direct Relief has sent to Syria and Turkey since the earthquakes struck.

Also this week, shipments of requested medical supplies, including field medic packs and kits containing personal care items for displaced people, were received in Adana, Turkey, and distributed by Direct Relief staff to communities impacted by February’s earthquakes.

The medical aid was delivered to local healthcare providers in clinics and field hospitals providing critical medical care to patients in the affected region.

covering medical costs for Ukrainian refugees

This week, it was announced that over 310,000 Ukrainian refugees in Poland received funds for medications and other pharmacy purchases in the past year as part of the Health4Ukraine initiative. The announcement was made at an event in Lodz, Poland, which included U.S. Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski, Pelion S.A. CEO Jacek Szwajcowski, Direct Relief CEO Thomas Tighe, and representatives of the Embassy of Ukraine, among others.

“I want to express my deepest gratitude to Pelion and Direct Relief for launching the Health4Ukraine initiative,” said Ambassador Brzezinski. “As we gather here today, we celebrate the tireless efforts and dedication of all the individuals and organizations involved in this noble cause through their unwavering commitment to alleviate suffering and providing aid to those in need. They have shown that when we come together as a global community, we can overcome even the most significant challenges.”

Health4Ukraine received 15 million USD in funding from Direct Relief last year.

Read more about Health4Ukraine’s impact here.

Monitoring cyclone mocha

Cyclone Mocha is forecast to make landfall this Sunday along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. The India Meteorological Department estimates sustained winds of 100 to 115 mph at landfall. Myanmar and Bangladesh have deployed thousands of volunteers to the region and ordered evacuations from low-lying areas.

As of May 11, over 10,000 people have left for shelter, and more than two million people are expected to be exposed to the storm. The Bay of Bengal is highly prone to cyclones, and this storm comes weeks after the 15th anniversary of Cyclone Nargis, the deadliest natural disaster in Myanmar’s history.

Direct Relief is in communication with local healthcare partners across the region, including the Ministry of Health of Myanmar and HOPE Hospital in Bangladesh, ahead of the predicted landfall. In the last six months, Direct Relief has sent five shipments to Bangladesh, which included 10 tons worth of insulin, prescription drugs, and medical supplies, as well as a shipment of requested medications to Myanmar.

Direct Relief will continue to monitor the situation and respond as requested.

Material aid for Ukraine

Since Feb. 24, 2022, Direct Relief has provided medical aid to Ukraine weighing more than 2.7 million pounds, or 1,350 tons, with more on the way.

OPERATIONAL SNAPSHOT

WORLDWIDE

This week, Direct Relief shipped 17.7 million defined daily doses of medication outside the U.S.

Countries that received medical aid over the past week included:

• Ukraine
• Honduras
• Lebanon
• Syria
• Thailand
• Zimbabwe
• India
• Ghana

UNITED STATES

Direct Relief delivered 400 shipments containing almost three tons of medications over the past week to organizations, including the following:

• Delta Health Center, Mississippi
• Health Service Alliance, California
• Clearwater Free Clinic, Florida
• Korean Community Services, California
• Central Florida Health Care, Florida
• Welvista, South Carolina
• Grace Medical Home, Florida
• Brevard Health Alliance Rockledge, Florida
• Hands of Hope Medical Clinic, North Carolina
• Community Care Center, North Carolina

YEAR-TO-DATE (GLOBAL)

Since Jan. 1, 2023, Direct Relief has delivered 6,092 shipments to 1,540 healthcare providers in 53 U.S. states and territories and 61 countries.

These shipments contained 211.6 million defined daily doses of medication valued at $684.7 million (wholesale), totaling 2.9 million lbs.

In The News

Santa Barbara humanitarian aid organizations respond to deadly East Africa cyclone – KCBX FM: Direct Relief’s Chris Alleway discusses the organization’s response to Cyclone Freddy in Malawi.

Teva Pharmaceuticals, collaborators team up to donate behavioral health meds to free clinics, pharmacies – Fierce Healthcare: “Launched last summer with humanitarian organization Direct Relief and the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, the program is aimed at expanding medication access for medically underserved patients.”

Fighting continues in Sudan as more than 100,000 escape and hospitals shut down – NPR 1A: “Direct Relief’s Andrew Schroeder joined NPR’s 1A to discuss the current crisis in Sudan – refugees and migration, regional preparation for the influx of those on the move, and the state of/challenges facing humanitarian aid access into the country.“

Direct Relief helps efforts for refugees from war with Russia – Santa Barbara News-Press: “Goleta-based Direct Relief continues to serve on the front lines of aid efforts with medical supplies and resources in Poland for Ukrainian refugees who have fled the war-stricken country.”

The post Support Arrives for Turkey & Syria, Cyclone Mocha Response, and More appeared first on Direct Relief.

This latest storm comes on the heels of Cyclone Batsirai, which killed at least 120 people, and Tropical Storm Ana, which killed at least 51 people, according to the country’s disaster relief agency.

“The winds from storm Dumako are not as strong as those from Cyclone Batsirai. But you have to be careful about floods and landslides, which could cause deaths,” the director-general of Madagascar’s disaster management officer Gen. Elack Andriakaja told the AP.

Madagascar and other southern African nations have faced an increased number of cyclones and tropical storm activity in recent years as Indian Ocean temperatures have risen. The  U.N. Meteorological Organization has stated that the trend is likely to continue.

Even as the island nation has faced deadly rainfall levels and flooding in recent weeks, over 1 million people are experiencing famine due to the worst drought Madagascar had faced in 40 years—a pattern that countries in the region were told to prepare for by the  U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Another storm system, Tropical Storm Emnati, could make landfall in Madagascar early next week, and U.N. meteorologists have said that the region can expect 8 to 12 more storms this season.

Direct Relief is in communication with health care providers in Madagascar to understand what is needed on the ground and how to optimally respond.

Brazil Flooding and Landslides

Across the globe, Brazil has faced a series of storms over the past three months, resulting in severe flooding and landslides which have affected more than 40 cities across multiple states. Yesterday, Petrópolis, a city located in the mountains northeast of Rio de Janeiro, experienced a record 10.2 inches of rain in 24 hours, which bested the previous record of 6.6 inches, set in 1952. The amount of rain was equivalent to a month’s downpour in just three hours, which triggered flash floods and a landslide that killed at least 110 people and left at least 400 people homeless. Dozens more remain missing, according to the AP.

“The situation is almost like war… Cars hanging from poles, cars overturned, lots of mud and water still,” Rio de Janeiro Governor Cláudio Castro told journalists.

Search and rescue teams continue to respond and have saved 24 people so far, according to the Brazilian government. More heavy rain is forecast for today.

The landslides and flooding in Petrópolis follow last December’s flooding in Bahia that killed 21 people and the January landslides in São Paulo and Minas Gerais, which killed more than 40 people. In 2011, the Petrópolis area saw landslides and flooding which killed more than 900 people.

 Direct Relief staff is in communication with local organizations, offering support as needed. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the organization has built a strong relationship with the Ministry of Health in Rio de Janeiro, and Direct Relief has shipped personal protective equipment to support the response.

Direct Relief has sent $33 million worth of aid to Brazil and $6.7 million worth of aid to Madagascar since 2010.

Chris Alleway contributed additional reporting.

The post Severe Weather Compounds Challenges in Brazil, Madagascar appeared first on Direct Relief.

Cyclone Batsirai landed on Madagascar’s southeastern coast over the weekend, the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane. Madagascar’s government and the U.N. have reported over 60,000 displaced. The NGO Operation Fistula, which supports fistula repair services throughout the central and southern parts of the country, reported a total loss of their main hospital. 

Reports from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and other agencies indicate that 95% of property has been lost in the coastal city of Nosy-Varika, which is home to roughly 20,000 people inside a district of approximately 275,000. Image analysis from the United Nations Satellite Center (UNOSAT) shows massive amounts of flooding throughout the similarly sized city, Mananjary, and its surrounding district. 

These major storm impacts in central and southern Madagascar follow severe flooding from Tropical Storm Ana, which hit the capital city of Antananarivo at the end of January. At that time, 34 people were killed, an estimated 10,000 homes were destroyed, and huge amounts of critical infrastructure, including health facilities and schools, were either destroyed or rendered inaccessible.   

The combination of these two near-concurrent events means that, essentially, the entire country is now dealing with the consequences of major water-related emergencies all at once. This would be a serious situation under any circumstances, but Madagascar isn’t just any country. In the four months prior to these storm events, the country was already facing an entirely different sort of crisis. 

As of the first week of January 2022, southern Madagascar was in the throes of the worst drought on record, and its third year of drought in a row. 

This map, published by Fews.net – the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, looks at the solar reflectivity of green plant life as a principal measure of drought and plant health. Roughly 10 days prior to Tropical Storm Ana, southern Madagascar was experiencing some of the worst drought metrics ever recorded in that country.  

As a result, the U.N. and other agencies declared a food security crisis, prompting planning for emergency food relief for as many as 2 million people. 

But the storm impacts likely make this food security situation even worse. There are two principal reasons for this. First, transportation networks through the country, which are required to move goods and people where they are most needed, will be disrupted. Second, essential governmental and other resources will be diverted toward immediate storm recovery, rather than somewhat longer-term food security issues. 

It is worth noting that this rapid fluctuation between drought and flooding is precisely what most climate change models predict, indicating the worsening exposure of countries like Madagascar to growing threats from global climate change. 

Madagascar already faces any number of daunting structural health challenges, from low vaccination rates, which led to massive measles outbreaks in 2018 and 2019, to a resurgence of Covid-19 cases due to the omicron variant – case numbers per million shown in the map below – to low numbers of health workers and other aspects of essential health infrastructure.  

Added together, the crises in Madagascar from flooding, storm damage, drought, food insecurity, and weak health systems amount to one of the worst cumulative sets of crises faced by any group of people anywhere on earth.  Direct Relief has been in communication with health organizations working locally and is ready to support any needed medical requests as the post-storm situation unfolds.

The post In Madagascar, Multiple Crises Compound appeared first on Direct Relief.

Batsirai, which is responsible for one death on Mauritius already, is currently tracking as a Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 145 miles per hour. The storm is also predicted to bring 10 to 20 inches of rain, and the impact on Madagascar’s east coast will likely include dangerous storm surges, with landslides remaining a risk as well.

“We are very nervous,” the World Food Programme’s Pasqualina Di Sirio told the BBC.

Adding to the threat posed by the cyclone, Madagascar lost 24% of its forests in the last 20 years, according to Global Forest Watch. An analysis by Yale Climate Connections reported that this loss, combined with the island’s mountainous terrain, will lead to more powerful flood runoff and flood heights.

The storms come as Madagascar is also contending with Covid-19, as only 1.8% of its population is fully vaccinated. Other seasonal health challenges remain, including endemic plague.

As with all post-storm situations, Direct Relief is focused on responding to medical requests related to alleviating interruptions to supply chains, power, and access to medicines, especially for chronic conditions. Post-storm deaths often exceed deaths during the event itself, including for Hurricane Katrina, according to autopsy reports from Louisiana. Such fatalities often come due to a combination of factors, including waterborne illness, food insecurity, reduced medical stockpiles, and power outages.

Direct Relief staff is in touch with health care providers on the ground, including officials at the Ministry of Public Health, who are reviewing an offer of support. Since 2010, Direct Relief has sent $6.7 million worth of requested medicines and medical supplies to Madagascar.

Additional reporting was contributed by Chris Alleway.

The post Madagascar Prepares for Second Cyclone in Two Weeks appeared first on Direct Relief.

Cyclone Tauktae, churning in the Arabian Sea, is expected to make landfall Tuesday in Gujarat, where the storm’s worst impacts could be concentrated. On Monday, the storm recorded sustained wind speeds of 115 miles per hour, equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane. Large scale evacuations are underway, with tens of thousands urged to leave low-lying areas along India’s western coast, and more evacuations expected in the coming days.

Heavy rains preceded the storm, and deluged communities with up to 8 inches of rain in some areas. Though Covid-19 cases are declining in the country, more than 280,000 cases were recorded on May 16 alone. More than 8,000 of those cases were recorded in Gujarat, where the cyclone could make landfall.

Direct Relief is supporting hospitals in and around Mumbai on India’s west coast as part of the COVID response. This support includes FedEx’s first charter that transported more than 3,400 oxygen concentrators and other supplies that have since been distributed by Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai to a network of facilities.

Direct Relief is in communication with partner health facilities in the affected areas, and will remain in touch with additional health facilities in Gujarat in case emergency support is needed.

The post With Covid-19 Still Surging, India Braces for Cyclone Impact appeared first on Direct Relief.

• Direct Relief is supporting health care organizations providing care to patients on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border.

• The organization is working with Mexico to deliver 650,000 doses of polio vaccine to Nicaragua this week.

• Direct Relief has provided a total of more than $234 million and 1.1 million pounds of aid to the Syrian conflict, which marked its 10th anniversary this month.

• Dhulikhel Hospital in Nepal is working to detect the spread of new Covid-19 strains, with Direct Relief’s support.

Top Stories

As Migration Surges, Direct Relief Responds with Medical Aid

The situation: As a surge of migrants crosses the U.S.-Mexico border, health care providers are caring for people on both sides of the border.

The response: In addition to providing routine support to partners on each side of the southwestern border, Direct Relief staff hand-delivered multiple caches of emergency medical supplies to San Diego this weekend.

The impact: Medical services and shelter are being provided to unaccompanied minors who have crossed the border.

Mexico and Direct Relief Deliver 650,000 Polio Vaccine Doses to Nicaragua

The situation: Nicaragua is conducting a national vaccination campaign to inoculate children against the polio virus.

The response: Direct Relief, working with the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, BIRMEX, and the Nicaragua Ministry of Health (MINSA), is transporting 650,000 polio vaccine doses to the country this week.

The impact: The donation will boost the country’s vital child vaccination work.

As Syria Marks a Grim Anniversary, A Look Back at Direct Relief’s Response

The situation: Civil war broke out in Syria in 2011. Millions have been displaced, and the country’s once strong health system is in crisis.

The response: Direct Relief began responding to the conflict in 2015. The organization’s response – more than $234 million and 1.1 million pounds in aid have been provided – has been one of the largest and most sustained responses in its history.

The impact: Aid has bolstered medical care to those injured or affected by combat, maternal and specialty services, mental health support for refugees, and much more.

A New Grant Will Enhance Covid-19 Variant Testing in Nepal

The situation: Dhulikhel Hospital, which works closely with the Nepali government, is launching an ambitious new project to aid in its fight against Covid-19.

The response: Direct Relief is supporting their efforts with a $50,000 grant.

The impact: The program will use random sampling to detect the spread of new Covid-19 strains in Nepal, enhancing the country’s Covid-19 response.

In Brief

The United States

• Over the past two weeks, Direct Relief has made 998 shipments to 511 United States partners, totaling more than $37 million in value.
• During that time, more than $379,000 in grants has been distributed.
• After extreme weather swept through multiple states, Direct Relief offered support to more than 300 partners and sent medical aid to health centers and a local clinic.
• A $100,000 grant will provide mental health support to renal patients in Puerto Rico.
• A health center that received a $50,000 Direct Relief grant has reached more than 10,000 patients in six months through their substance use disorder program.

Around the World

• In the past two weeks, Direct Relief has made 36 shipments to 32 international partners, totaling more than $15 million in value.
• More than $250,000 in grants was distributed over the same two weeks.
• A $100,000 grant will fight Covid-19’s impacts on South Africa.
• Direct Relief and Build Health International are rebuilding a clinic in the Bahamas at the Ministry of Health’s request.
• A $50,000 grant will support pediatric cancer patients in Belarus.
• As Mozambique’s recovery from Cyclone Eloise takes place against a backdrop of Covid-19, a $50,000 Direct Relief grant will bolster relief efforts.

The post Global Update: Medical Aid at the Border; Polio Vaccine to Nicaragua; the Syrian Conflict appeared first on Direct Relief.

• Precisely one year into Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response, the organization has sent more than 29,000 shipments valued at $1.3 billion, and provided more than $50 million in direct funding.
• Miami Heat donated $1 million to Direct Relief to address health care gaps in South Florida’s minority communities.
• To bolster vaccination efforts across Puerto Rico, Direct Relief is supporting four health centers leading the way with $60,000 in grants.
• As African health care workers address PPE shortages with locally made masks, Direct Relief provides $100,000 in support.

Top Stories

On the 1-Year Anniversary of Direct Relief’s Covid-19 Response, More than $1.3 Billion in Aid, $50 Million in Funding

The situation: Just over one year ago, a mysterious new coronavirus appeared in Wuhan, China, and spread quickly around the globe.

The response: Beginning on January 27, 2020, Direct Relief started a complex, multifaceted response, supplying PPE, ventilators, oxygen concentrators, critical care medications, and other essential medical aid around the world.

The impact: The organization has supported a worldwide response that has included testing, care for hospitalized patients, monitoring, prevention, and most recently, vaccination.

Miami Heat Targets Health Inequity in South Florida with a $1 Million Grant to Direct Relief

The situation: Communities of color have experienced higher rates of infections, hospitalizations, and death from Covid-19 than the general population.

The response: Miami Heat is fighting these injustices in their community with a grant dedicated to promoting health equity.

The impact: Direct Relief will provide additional support to on-the-ground health care providers in South Florida that serve these vulnerable populations.

In Puerto Rico, Vaccinations are in Full Swing. Direct Relief Is Supporting Local Efforts.

The situation: More than 160,000 Puerto Ricans have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, with efforts aimed at health care workers, adults over 65, and educators.

The response: Direct Relief has supported Puerto Rico’s health centers throughout the pandemic, and donations of refrigerators have been vital to storing and administering the vaccines. Now Direct Relief is providing grants to four health centers playing essential roles in vaccination efforts.

The impact: The island plans to have more than 600,000 people vaccinated by the end of June.

Direct Relief Supports African Health Workers Fighting PPE Shortages with Handmade Masks

The situation: Health workers in eastern and southern Africa are facing fierce worldwide competition for PPE.

The response: A Direct Relief-supported group has set out to make 1 million reusable masks. In addition, through the Covid Action Fund for Africa, Direct Relief has contributed more than 57 million pieces of PPE to providers In 12 African countries.

The impact: Frontline health care workers will receive much-needed protection as they care for their patients.

In Brief

The United States

• As Southern California, a Covid-19 hotspot, fights to keep ICU beds available, Direct Relief provided medical aid, including 200 oxygen concentrators and 240 powered air-purifying respirators, to the region. $500,000 in emergency funding was also provided.
• The organization made a $1 million grant to the Navajo Nation.
• A $250,000 grant to the Community Health Center Association of Mississippi will fund a program designed to reduce food insecurity and improve chronic disease outcomes.

Around the World

• $900,000 in medical aid, including inhalers, steroids, antibiotics, diabetic medications, and more, is being provided to the Gaza Health Center at the Gaza-Erez border.
• After Cyclone Eloise pummeled southern Africa, Direct Relief sent a $50,000 emergency grant to the region.
• 2 million masks were sent to Mexico at a critical juncture in the country’s Covid-19 response.
• Shortage of a vital medication is killing mothers in Nepal. Direct Relief is delivering more than 34,000 doses to the country.
• A large shipment of midwife kits was delivered to the Tanzania Association of Midwives, to be distributed to 50 government facilities. The shipment was delivered in coordination with the International Confederation of Midwives.
• Five ventilators arrived at the Edna Adan Hospital in Somaliland.

The post Global Update: Looking Back on a Year of Covid-19 Response, Miami Heat, and Supporting Puerto Rico’s Vaccine Rollout appeared first on Direct Relief.

Mozambique and its neighboring countries are also in the midst of a Covid-19 surge. WHO reported yesterday that cases and deaths across Sub-Saharan Africa appear to have doubled in the past week, with countries in southern Africa, including Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique experiencing the most widespread outbreaks.

Beira, the capital city of Sofala province, had been recovering from March 2019’s Cyclone Idai, last December’s Cyclone Chalane, and regional flooding earlier this month when Eloise hit. Idai was one of the region’s worst storms on record and killed over 1,000 people. Another powerful powerful cyclone, Kenneth, hit six weeks later farther north in the country.

Dr. Isaías Ramiro, Mozambique country director for Health Alliance International, or HAI, said the most pressing issue is finding shelter for those who have been displaced.

“The big problem now is that many people lost their houses and need help,” said Ramiro. HAI, a Seattle-based nonprofit working to increase health care access in Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire, Timor-Leste, and Washington State, has been tasked by the Mozambique government to assess the full extent of the damage and evaluate the most pressing repair needs.

Ramiro said that evacuation-related policies enacted after Idai, which were also successfully deployed before Chalane, helped save countless lives during this latest storm. However, critical infrastructure was severely damaged. The UN reported that 76 health centers and 400 classrooms were damaged or destroyed.

“What’s frustrating is that health facilities rehabilitated after Idai are damaged right now,” Ramiro said.

Cyclone Idai Destroyed Their Hospital. These Two Doctors Never Stopped Treating Patients.

According to figures collected by Johns Hopkins University, at least 356 people have been killed by Covid-19 and at least 37,000 people have tested positive in Mozambique, though Ramiro said that the figures significantly undercount the actual totals. Private hospitals in the capital city of Maputo have been full since the surge began during the second week of January and public hospitals are severely stressed as well. 1,500 health care workers are currently hospitalized, according to HAI, and access to PPE for health care workers remains limited. While the government can increase the bed count, the country faces an acute shortage of oxygen and staff. “I won’t even talk about ventilators,” Ramiro said.

“We managed to avoid to the kinds of severe cases we are seeing now,” he said.

Other challenges during the pandemic have included limited testing capacity, a limited ability to enact a lockdown, and budgetary shortfalls.

“A lockdown would have catastrophic consequence for a county with very limited resources. The government could not offer some countermeasures of the lockdown. Most of the population live day-to-day or run small businesses just to ensure that they have some money to eat the next day,” he said.

‘The government has a very limited or even no budget to respond for such a continuous tragedy, with Idai, and now Eloise in the same region… the future will depend on what kind of support the government will have,” he said.

In addition to the pandemic, the country is also trying to avert cholera and other waterborne disease outbreaks, as occurred following Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in 2019. Those outbreaks were contained with, “social mobilization campaigns for prevention, establishment of treatment centers and units, coordination to improve of water, sanitation and hygiene, and surveillance,” according to a 2019 study in The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

“With flood waters present in multiple locations, the risk of water-borne diseases, including cholera, is high,” OCHA warned in a statement that was first reported by AFP.

Direct Relief worked with a team led by Dr. Ayesha Mahmud of UC Berkeley and Rebecca Kahn of Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health to create a predictive mapping application that models the risk of a cholera outbreak. The app was shared with Mozambique’s Beira Operations Research Center  and follows a similar product Mahmud and Kahn created with Direct Relief, Nethope, Facebook’s Data for Good team, and Northwestern University’s School of Medicine in 2019 to predict cholera outbreak pathways. That modeling was shared with WHO in Pemba and Mozambique’s Ministry of Health.

The goal of the apps is to give policy makers information that can help inform an optimized deployment of resources.

Direct Relief has also responded to Cyclone Eloise via a $50,000 grant that was requested by HAI to lead health center repairs and rebuilding efforts in the region. Support for the latest storm comes on top of $5.2 million in medical aid shipped to Mozambique since Cyclone Idai made landfall.

The post Powerful Cyclone Hits During Covid-19 Surge in Mozambique appeared first on Direct Relief.

The storm killed at least four people, including an infant, and displaced tens of thousands. Two nonprofit groups with staff members on the ground described entire communities near-decimated, more than 20,000 in evacuation centers, and ruined crops that were bound to exacerbate already-existing food insecurities.

Medical supplies, food, and shelter were all needed in affected communities, the groups said.

Direct Relief is preparing multiple deliveries in response to specific requests from the Fijian Ministry of Health and local hospitals. Aid includes a Hurricane Prep Pack, which contains antibiotics, syringes, basic first aid supplies, and medications to treat conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and severe allergic reactions. The shipment also includes a supply of tents, a 40-foot container containing PPE, wound care, and other medical aid, and an additional shipment of medicines still being prepared as needs on the ground are determined.

Ken Barasch is one of the founders of the Savusavu Community Foundation, a nonprofit that provides health care, educational, and other support in Fiji. “It hasn’t been great up in that area,” he said. “The coastal areas had not only the storm and the winds, but also storm surges.”

One village on Kia Island, made up of approximately 45 homes, saw all but two of them destroyed, Barasch said. Others were similarly devastated.

But although both government and private groups are responding on the ground, it’s difficult to get a full sense of the damage, Barasch said. “It’s almost day by day because I get reports throughout the day and the news is changing constantly,” he said.

The storm cut a similar path to that of 2016’s infamous Cyclone Winston, a long-lived Category 5 storm that killed more than 40 people, although Barasch said it traveled in essentially the opposite direction.

Complicating matters is the fact that the storm will worsen economic and food insecurity on the island, said Linda Kwasny, a project coordinator and founding board member for the Loloma Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides support to medical and dental systems in the South Pacific.

“When a cyclone hits all of the farms that everyone relies on, [they] become totally useless because the seawater ruins the crops,” she said.

And Covid-19 has made it more difficult to much-needed aid into the region. While Fiji hasn’t been badly hit by the worldwide pandemic, travel in and out of the country is restricted to prevent its spread.

Generally, the Loloma Foundation operates six medical and dental rotations a year in Fiji. “We’ve gotten it down to a science,” Kwasny said. “Had Covid not been there, we would have sent a whole team to go down into these areas.”

In addition to bringing in medical aid, both organizations are bringing in food for those displaced by the storm. The Loloma Foundation will distribute tarps and tents to construct temporary shelters for people whose homes were destroyed or damaged.

And the Savusavu Community Foundation is beginning the rebuilding process, starting out in 10 badly damaged villages and expanding from there. Barasch said they’ll employ special cyclone screws and metal ties to secure roofs, so they’ll stand up better to future storms.

Both organizations said that they’d be providing support to Fiji in any case. There’s also typically a flurry of end-of-year activity as the island gears up for cyclone season. But Yasa arrived early, and the need for medical and other interventions has sharply increased.

And Direct Relief’s support has been essential, Kwasny said. “Without [Direct Relief] as our partner, it would be very difficult,” she explained. “They are a very intrinsic part of our functioning here.”

Kwasny also stressed that Fiji, accustomed to active cyclone seasons, would make it through the catastrophe.

“Fijians are amazingly resilient,” she said. “They’ll do what they have to do.”

The post Responding to Fiji’s Category 5 Cyclone Yasa appeared first on Direct Relief.

• In the fight to reach everyone with Covid-19 vaccines, nonprofit health centers have an essential role to play.

• 35,000 doses of insulin arrive in hard-hit Lebanon, with an additional 55,000 on the way.

• Forbes ranks Direct Relief the third largest charity in the United States.

• Working with The Pfizer Foundation, Direct Relief will provide $2.5 million to safety net providers fighting infectious disease in vulnerable communities.

Top Stories:

When It Comes to Covid-19 Vaccines, Health Centers Are Well Equipped to Reach the Nation’s Most Vulnerable

The situation: When it comes to distributing Covid-19 vaccines, writes Direct Relief President and CEO Thomas Tighe, the biggest hurdle won’t be logistics. Instead, it’s the nation’s most vulnerable who will be most likely to miss out on the vaccine.

The response: Direct Relief supports health centers, which are designed to meet the needs of underserved communities, with everything from PPE to refrigeration to funding.

The impact: Health centers have already played essential roles in conducting widespread Covid-19 testing and keeping patients out of hospitals. They’ll be well positioned to build on the trust and familiarity they’ve already established in vulnerable communities to effectively administer vaccinations.

35,000 Doses of Insulin Arrive in Beirut, with 55,000 More to Follow

The situation: Even before the Beirut blast, Lebanon was experiencing medication shortages. Since the blast, much-needed chronic disease medicines have been hard to come by.

The response: Direct Relief sent 35,000 vials of insulin, worth $5.2 million, to an on-the-ground partner in Lebanon. Another donation containing 55,000 vials and valued at $8.1 million is in progress.

The impact: The donations will reach thousands of people with diabetes.

Forbes Ranks Direct Relief the Nation’s Third Largest Charity

The situation: In its fiscal year 2020, Direct Relief received $1.99 billion in private donations, a 39% increase over last year. The organization was listed third on the yearly Forbes list of United States charities.

The response: The increased donations have allowed Direct Relief to launch and maintain a massive, global Covid-19 response while continuing to provide aid during emergencies and fund new and ongoing programs.

The impact: The organization’s work supports health centers and clinics serving the United States’ most vulnerable people, along with partners providing primary care, specialty medical services, maternal and child health, and much more all around the world.

Direct Relief and the Pfizer Foundation Support 11 Infectious Disease Programs with $2.5 Million in Grants

The situation: Vulnerable communities in the United States are at risk from infectious diseases, from STIs to tick-borne diseases to respiratory ailments.

The response: Working with The Pfizer Foundation, Direct Relief is funding 11 innovative infectious disease prevention programs around the country.

The impact: The programs, which range from a rural center providing care at the border to a provider serving Chicago’s Southwest side, will work to track, treat, and prevent diseases as diverse as Covid-19 and HIV.

In Brief

The United States

• Direct Relief will finish distributing 42,000 doses of the flu vaccine and 30,000 CVS flu vaccine vouchers to vulnerable patients to help the ongoing fight against a “twindemic.”
• Bayer announced a new initiative, We’re for Her, in partnership with Direct Relief. The initiative involves a series of grants to safety net providers, donation of Bayer IUDs, and educational materials to be distributed to health care facilities.
• Through the Helping Build Healthy Communities, a joint initiative by BD and Direct Relief, six nonprofit health centers have been awarded $150,000 each for their efforts to fight chronic disease by identifying and working to overcome barriers to health.

Around the World

• In the wake of Cyclone Yasa, which struck Fiji last week, Direct Relief is providing a Hurricane Prep Pack, tents, and pharmaceutical supplies to local partners.
• As a new study highlights the challenges of diabetes care, Direct Relief continues to partner with Life for a Child to distribute insulin, syringes, and blood glucose monitoring equipment to children living with diabetes.

The post Global Update: Covid-19 Vaccines and Health Centers, Fighting Infectious Diseases, and Delivering Insulin to Lebanon appeared first on Direct Relief.

For the latest case totals and donation data at a glance, be sure to check Direct Relief’s live updating map:

June 30 – Current U.S. totals for Covid-19 relief, as of 12:26 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time:

13,499 shipments sent to 2,252 recipients valued at $127.3 million.

***

Coverage of Direct Relief’s $1 million grant to Federally Qualified Health Centers in Puerto Rico:

“They know what it is to help, support and work hand in hand with us, so that the health and stability of our communities is under control,” [Ivonne I. Rivera, executive director of Health Pro Med] said. “Direct Relief supports us so that we can plan and respond quickly and effectively to emergency situations. Everyone would like a partner like them, they always come first in the most difficult moments.”

Read the full story here:
Direct Relief awards $1M+ in cash to island community health centers to fight COVID-19

***

June 29 –   Direct Relief CEO Thomas Tighe appeared on Bloomberg Radio to discuss PPE supplies, how Direct Relief has filled critical gaps, and public-private partnerships.

The interview begins at the 21 minute mark:
Sound On: Sen. Ernst, Rep. McCaul, PPE Supply (Podcast)

***

A comprehensive update on Direct Relief’s international (non-U.S) response follows. All figures listed are cumulative totals since January 30, 2020:

-Direct Relief has sent 101 deliveries to 48 countries valued at $10.3 million.

-Included in this figure are 121 ICU kits which have been sent to 32 partners in 29 countries. The kits contain intensive care meditations, ventilators, oxygen concentrators, and PPE.

Given that the needs of our partner network far exceed our ability to supply, these partners and countries have been carefully selected based on the following: knowledge of the existing partners and network, direct requests for help from individual partners and Ministries of Health, targeted request for information by Direct Relief from short-listed partners with regards to ICU capacity, status as a nationally recognized center of Covid-19 treatment, Covid-19 patient numbers, physical ability to clear and receive the ICU kit given movement and transport restrictions, and all cross-checked with national vulnerability data.

By Region:

MEXICO

Direct Relief Mexico is a registered national NGO operating as a Civil Association since 2014. Direct Relief coordinates with the Mexican Social Security Institute which provides healthcare to over 80 million people. It has agreements with the State Ministries of Coahuila, Morelos, Oaxaca, and Quintana Roo as well as standing donation agreements with 14 local manufacturers that are also seeking to support its Mexico response efforts.

Response:
-2,700 goggles, 46,000 surgical masks, and 17,800 face shields to 21 hospitals as part of the Coca Cola Foundation project.

-$791,500 from Coca Cola Foundation to be used to purchase PPE for 120 hospitals.

-1,000 N95 masks sent to Mexico via the Mexican Consulate.

-Facilitated the importation of 100,000 KN95 masks donated to Fundacion IMSS by two-time Academy Award-winning film director Alfonso Cuarón.

-Received in-kind donation of OTC items from Johnson & Johnson.

-Received in-kind donation of Bepanthen (skin cream) from Bayer to be distributed to frontline health workers experiencing skin irritation from PPE.

-350,000 surgical masks distributed to hospitals.

-10,000 Goggles and 30,000 face-shields distributed.

-Established a partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers to help identify local PPE vendors and to develop a distribution plan for Mexico partners.

-4,275 N95 Masks purchased and delivered to the National Nutrition Institute.

-285,000 surgical masks, 43,750 N95 masks, 22.000 surgical gowns, 13,000 mortuary bags, 10,000 face shields, 4,890 boxes of gloves were purchased to be included as part of the Coca Cola Covid-19 kits. To be delivered the week of 6/15.

-Working directly with Martha Delgado, Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide 1 million level 2 surgical masks.

-Providing $165,000 in funding to transport essential Covid-19 health supplies from China to Mexico.

*

LATIN AMERICA

Direct Relief has longstanding partnerships within most countries of the region. Notably, Direct Relief has a key strategic partnership with the Pan American Health Organization, the division of the World Health Organization overseeing 35 countries in the Americas. PAHO is a specialized international UN health organization for the Americas and supports public health and health emergencies across all the states and territories in North, Central, South America, and Caribbean. As an approved non-state actor, Direct Relief and PAHO hold an official agreement in order to provide donated medical materials to the region and support PAHO’s mandate. Direct Relief works closely with PAHO’s leadership to support the international response to Covid-19 across the region.

Response:
–ICU kits are being deployed to health authorities in Suriname, a country Direct Relief has only worked in once before, and to Guayana. The requests for the kits came through PAHO’s regional offices, who are working closely with national health authorities.

-ICU kits are in transit to the Dominican Republic and El Salvador.

-60 oxygen concentrators arrived to PAHO’s warehouse in Panama. 30 will stay in Panama, and 30 will be shipped to Costa Rica, two countries struggling to keep ahead of their Covid-19 patient population. This will be the first time Direct Relief has delivered medical aid to Costa Rica.

-100 oxygen concentrators have been shipped to PAHO’s regional offices for distribution to Covid-19 treatment facilities in Colombia, Guatemala and Peru.

-A shipment of essential supplies and medicines arrived in Bogota, Colombia on June 10 for the Ministry of Health of Colombia, targeting health facilities that are caring for Venezuelan migrants residing in the country. Direct Relief’s NGO partner Banco Medicamentos is assisting with the importation and logistics.

– 46 pallets of general medicines and supplies, seven ICU medicine kits, 90 oxygen concentrators and an Emergency Health Kit arrived Quito, Ecuador for the to the Ministry of Health of Ecuador and to the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security. The 46 pallets (8.8 tons, valued at $2.8 million) will be distributed to four different departments in the country, including Quito and Guayaquil.

-50 oxygen concentrators and 25 Emergency Medical Packs have been delivered to PAHO, Haiti.

-Covid-19 preparedness donations containing Emergency Medical Packs and various PPE items were sent to the following PAHO Member States: Panama, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay.

– A large shipment containing PPE, Emergency Medical Packs, general medicines and other supplies was delivered to the Ministry of Health of Bolivia.

-783,000 surgical masks delivered to Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Peru. They masks were donated to Direct Relief for distribution to these countries by AstraZeneca.

-ICU kits have been shipped to El Salvador (3), Peru (3), Ecuador (7), and the Dominican Republic (1)

Funds committed:
-Direct Relief has sponsored a charter of $7 million of PPE purchased by PAHO, to be delivered to 35 member states across the Americas. The $1.5 million charter is due to arrive in the region within the next 14 days.

-A $50,000 emergency operations grant was provided to Sinergias Alianzas to purchase of PPE, and development of culturally and linguistically adapted educational materials for Covid-19 prevention for indigenous communities in the Amazon.

*

CARIBBEAN

Direct Relief has a key strategic partnership with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), which represents 18 Member States, as well as with the Organization of East Caribbean States (OECS), which represents 11 member states. Direct Relief is working closely with and supporting CDEMA and the OECS as they respond to the Covid-19 crisis across 18 Caribbean nations and territories.

Response:
-Four Covid-19 ICU kits containing essential intensive care medications for critical Covid-19 patients were sent to Grenada, St Lucia, Dominica, and Antigua & Barbuda.

-Four Covid-19 ICU kits containing essential intensive care medications for critical Covid-19 patients sent to two hospital partners in Haiti.

-Two Covid-19 ICU kits containing essential intensive care medications for critical Covid-19 patients were sent to the Bahamas Ministry of Health that will be distributed to Rand Memorial Hospital and Princess Margaret Hospital.

-12 Covid-19 preparedness donations containing Emergency Medical Packs, masks , gloves, gowns, and other PPE items, and oxygen concentrators were sent to 12 Caribbean nations: Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Bahamas, Haiti, and Jamaica.

-48 Emergency Medical Packs sent to the Dominica Ministry of Health’s Covid-19 testing and tracing team.

Funds Committed :
-$50,000 emergency grant to Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to increase Covid-19 testing capacity. It will be distributed to Saint Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda.

-$100,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to Health Equity International in Haiti to support the maintenance of health services.

-$100,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to St. Luke’s Foundation to support the purchase of oxygen equipment, PPE, and key accessories for the Covid-19 treatment unit.

*

EAST ASIA & PACIFIC

Direct Relief has a strategic regional partnership with the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Center). The AHA Center is the regional disaster management agency for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which is made up of 10 member nations. Direct Relief has an official memorandum of understanding with the AHA Center and is coordinating with them to support the Covid-19 response in the ASEAN region.

Response:
-Five ventilators donated to Philippines General Hospital (PGH) and the Lung Centre of the Philippines (LCP). In partnership with Zuellig Pharma and the Zuellig Family Foundation in the Philippines, Direct Relief facilitated the donation of an additional 6 ventilators and 5 oxygen concentrators to Philippines General Hospital (PGH), the Lung Centre of the Philippines (LCP), and San Lazaro Hospital.

-AHA Center deployed Direct Relief-Funded emergency tents and supplies from their Disaster Emergency Logistics System for ASEAN (DELSA) stockpile in Manila in support of the Philippines Covid-19 response.

Funds Committed:
-$12,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to local partner Bumi Sehat in Indonesia to procure PPE and other supplies to support the continuity of maternal and child health services at their birthing center in Bali.

-$57,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to local partner HFI in the Philippines to enable them to establish four Covid-19 isolation wards south of the capital, Manila.

*

AFRICA

Response:

-48 Midwife Kits to be donated to Health Alliance International (HAI) and the Ministry of Health of Mozambique, in Sofala province, Mozambique.

-The first three shipments of face shields and gloves are being shipped to Liberia (2 pallets), Zimbabwe (15 pallets), Lesotho (2 pallets). The next countries that will receive similar shipments are Malawi, Togo, and Côte d’Ivoire.

-Two Covid-19 preparedness donations containing Emergency Medical Packs, masks, gloves, gowns, other PPE items, and oxygen concentrators were sent to Partners in Health (PIH) in Malawi, and the Association des Diabetiques in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

– PPE gloves sent to Partners in Health in Sierra Leone.

-13 ICU kits shipped out to partners in Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe

Funds Committed:

-$20,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to Jericho Road to procure PPE supplies locally in the DRC.

-$5,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to OGRA to combat Covid-19 in health facilities in Kenya.

*

EUROPE

Direct Relief is working closely with authorities in the Lombardy region of Italy and Catalunya in Spain. Lombardy has been the epicentre of the Coronavirus outbreak in Italy and the regional health supply division supports 42 health facilities across Milan and the region. In Catalunya, Spain, Direct Relief is working with the Barcelona regional government to support hospitals with PPE and oxygen concentrators. In the UK, Direct Relief is supporting the Greater London Authority through the Office of London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Response:
-250,000 isolation gowns to Barcelona, Spain, where they will be placed in hospitals who are still managing Covid-19 cases.

-750,000 KN95 masks to the UK, Spain, and Italy.

-250,000 KN95 masks were recently distributed to 45 London-based organizations managing Covid-19 and homelessness in the city.

-100 Oxygen concentrators, five ICU kits, and other PPE to Italy.

-400 Oxygen concentrators and assorted PPE to Spain

-Three ICU Kits to the Ministry Of Health in Macedonia.

*

CENTRAL & SOUTH ASIA

Response:
-One Covid-19 preparedness donation containing Emergency Medical Packs, masks, gloves, gowns, and other PPE items, and oxygen concentrators sent to Hope Foundation Bangladesh to support the Rohingya refugee COVID-19 response.

-Two Covid-19 ICU Kits, 20 oxygen concentrators, one ventilator, and assorted PPE to Dhulikhel Hospital in Nepal, which is a government designated Covid-19 testing and treatment center.

-20 Covid-19 ICU Kits and 60 oxygen concentrators will be distributed to all of the public Covid-19 treatment facilities in Nepal. A total of 17 Ministry of Health facilities with ICU capacity.

-Five Covid-19 ICU Kits and 15 oxygen concentrators will be sent to Hope Foundation in Bangladesh, in support of their Covid-19 isolation center at the Rohingya Refugee camp.

-Three Covid-19 ICU Kits and 10 oxygen concentrators will be sent to Afshar Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan.

-Five Covid-19 ICU Kits and 15 oxygen concentrators will be sent to Meenakshi Research Hospital in Madurai, India.

Funds Committed:
-$40,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to Hope Foundation to support the establishment of a 50-bed COVID-19 isolation center at the Rohingya Refugee camp.

-$16,400 emergency Covid-19 grant to Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital in Pune, India, to procure PPE for their onsite COVID-19 ward.

-$50,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to Dhulikhel Hospital to increase the facility’s ICU capacity for proper Covid-19 management.

*

MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA

Response:
-Two Covid-19 preparedness donations containing Emergency Medical Packs, masks, gloves, gowns, and other PPE items, and oxygen concentrators sent to ANERA in Lebanon.

-Three Covid-19 ICU Kits and assorted PPE to the Ministry of Health of Armenia.

-20 Covid-19 ICU Kits, 150 oxygen concentrators, and 5 ventilators will be flown into Aden, Yemen via the World Food Programme Logistics Cluster. With support from Direct Relief partner Yemen Aid, these emergency supplies will be delivered to Covid-19 treatment centers in Aden, Taiz, Lahij, and Abyan.

-Five Covid-19 ICU Kits and 15 oxygen concentrators to the Independent Doctors Association in Syria.

-Three Covid-19 Kits and 9 oxygen concentrators to Rafik Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon.

***

June 28 – Photographer and National Geographic Explorer David Guttenfelder, along with dozens of his colleagues, are selling prints in concert with The Photo Society and Campaign Zero to benefit Direct Relief. Today is the last day:
https://twitter.com/dguttenfelder/status/1276510748181577729

***

Last day to enter the charity sweepstakes supporting the excellent work of @DirectRelief ! Win a custom-made Impractical Jokers cornhole set autographed by me here (and thank you!): https://t.co/iqZfJyXaXX pic.twitter.com/HaYjXaIIX0

— Murr (@jamessmurray) June 27, 2020

***

June 27 – An update from the Pan American Health Organization on their response to the pandemic in Latin America:

“The Pan American Health Organization delivered 40 oxygen concentrators to the Ministry of Health, through Command COVID-19, for distribution in health facilities that provide care for the indigenous population of the triple border with Colombia and Brazil.

[“La Organización Panamericana de la Salud entregó 40 concentradores de oxígeno al Ministerio de Salud, a través del Comando COVID-19, para su distribución en establecimientos de salud que brindan atención población indígena de la triple frontera con Colombia y Brasil.”]

…

“This important donation was made possible thanks to the support of Direct Relief, which delivered the goods valued at $40,000, through PAHO…

[“Esta importante donación se hizo posible gracias al apoyo de Direct Relief que entregó los bienes valorizados en 40 mil dólares…”]

Read the full update here (in Spanish):
OPS dona 40 concentradores de oxígeno para proteger a la población indígena de Loreto, Junín y Ucayali
https://twitter.com/DirectRelief/status/1276702473793581057

***

James “Murr” Murray and (Impractical) Jokers are running a charity sweepstakes for an autographed cornhole set, with proceeds to benefit Direct Relief:
https://twitter.com/jamessmurray/status/1276932688574918658

***

June 26 – Current U.S. totals for Covid-19 relief, as of 4:47 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time:

13,181 shipments sent to 2,244 recipients valued at $124.1 million.

***

Staff Journalist Talya Meyers with a report on how the Bahamas are working to combat the virus despite still recovering from a devastating hurricane:
Covid-19 Stymied Recovery in the Bahamas. Now, Things Are Opening Again.

***

One of the latest Direct Relief Covid-19 grantees:
https://twitter.com/DCSNOhealthcare/status/1276625049617915909

Escalon Times coverage of a grantee, Community Medical Centers, in Escalon, Calif.
Community Medical Centers Receives Emergency Grant

***

June 25 – Direct Relief’s VP of Research and Analysis Andrew Schroeder on his findings from looking at virus transmission data and Facebook-provided mobility data. Those data have been plotted by Direct Relief’s research and analysis team on an ArcGIS app, which can accessed here.

“Every state in the southern US is currently at Rt of 1 or above – meaning ALL of them are at some level of epidemic spread. The worst right now are actually Nevada, Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina and Arizona. But every one is spreading at epidemic rates.

“The key obviously is to keep R_0 (which refers to how many people an average sick person will infect below 1, which means that the virus is at non-epidemic state.

“Note that Rt has been below 1 in these states during only one period of time, and that period of time coincides almost perfectly with the period of most significant decrease in the average mobility rate for these states which extends from mid-March until the end of April. Beginning in the first week of May, mobility began to increase steadily throughout the southern US, and lo and behold the Rt moved back above 1 throughout the region.”

***

June 24 – An update on Direct Relief’s charitable shipments of oxygen concentrators: Since January 27, Direct Relief has delivered 1,883 oxygen concentrators to 46 recipients in 29 countries. These recipients include national ministries of health and multilaterals like PAHO, which has distributed them to its member countries across the Americas.

Direct Relief currently has 960 concentrators and oxygen tanks available, with another 136 set for arrival in the next several weeks. Direct Relief is joined in the effort to provide oxygen concentrators by groups such as UNICEF which, according to a New York Times report, has ordered about 16,000 concentrators for about 90 countries, and has been able to deliver 700 units to date.

***

Using Facebook data, Direct Relief’s VP of Research and Analysis Andrew Schroeder and his team created an ArcGIS map focused on international travel over the past few months. Here are some of the patterns Schroeder found, along with when  international travel might return to pre-pandemic levels, given current trends:

“Super interesting– you can see international travel just fall off a cliff in a couple of big waves during March – bottom out by mid-April– and then climb pretty steadily upwards in linear fashion through yesterday– where total travelers counted is at a little more than half the peak back at the start of this period. If you follow the rate of increase out, again in what appears to be a linear rate of increase, you get to a full recovery of international travel probably by the end of August– which seems… fast… all things considered.”

To explore the international travel ArcGIS app, click the image below or here.

***

FCHC received a grant from @DirectRelief to help us fight Covid-19 in our community. Check out our short video about the amazing #impact their generosity has had on our organization. https://t.co/qVo5BSwhEQ

— Fairfield Community Health Center (@WeAreFCHC) June 24, 2020

***

June 23 – As of 11:38 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time, Direct Relief has made 12,515 Covid-19 support deliveries to 2,206 partners in the United States. The value of these shipments is $97.31 million.

***

A selection of the latest PPE donation recipients during this pandemic:
https://twitter.com/IMR_MedResponse/status/1275199217259229185
https://twitter.com/CodmanHealth/status/1275081111761154048

***

June 22 – The latest podcast episode from Staff Journalist Amarica Rafanelli:

Racial Health Inequities Persist. Here’s How Two Minneapolis Providers are Bridging the Gap.

***

June 21 – An update on Direct Relief’s international (non-U.S) response follows. All figures listed are cumulative totals since January 30, 2020, the date when Covid-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the WHO. Update and numbers do not include U.S data.

LATIN AMERICA

41 emergency Covid-19 shipments to partners in 20 countries valued at $4.2 million

Updates since the June 15 comprehensive update:

-100 oxygen concentrators have been shipped to PAHO’s regional offices for distribution to Covid-19 treatment facilities in Colombia, Guatemala and Peru.

*

AFRICA

14 emergency Covid-19 shipments have been sent to 11 partners in 10 countries valued at $818,119. $1,000,025 granted to three partners across 3 countries.

Updates since the June 15 comprehensive update:

As a part of the developing $100 million project with Community Health Workers program in Africa, for which Direct Relief has committed to being the purchaser and transporter of all supplies, Direct Relief has purchased 25 million masks at $0.25 each, to be distributed in Liberia, Sierra Leon, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Lesotho.

Direct Relief and the World Food Program are working together on narrowing down options for transportation and delivery into the region.

*

CENTRAL & SOUTH ASIA

Two emergency Covid-19 shipment to two partners in two countries valued at $130,500. $56,400 granted to two partners in two countries.

Updates since the June 15 comprehensive update:

-Two Covid-19 ICU Kits, 20 oxygen concentrators, one ventilator, and assorted PPE to Dhulikhel Hospital in Nepal, a government-designated Covid-19 testing and treatment center.

*

MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA
Three emergency Covid-19 shipments to three partners in three countries valued at $198,946.

Updates since the June 15 comprehensive update:

Three Covid-19 ICU Kits and assorted PPE to the Ministry of Health of Armenia.

***

Ongoing:
HiDEF is running AOEFest (“Area of Effect”), an interactive digital festival to bring together the virtual community with top brands, celebrities, gamers, and influencers across music, film, gaming, and culture. The event will run until June 27.

***

June 20 –

Here are a selection of Direct Relief’s original videos made during this pandemic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deIWf9uzkQ0&feature=youtu.be
https://youtu.be/pCdTcP0Gr2o
https://youtu.be/hoNuALWxoKQ

***

June 19-  Direct Relief’s latest coverage of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen:

“‘There is… a real challenge around simply trying to survive” without the added threat of the coronavirus, said Aidan O’Leary,’ head of the Yemen office for the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.”

Read the full story here:
“One Hand Tied Behind Your Back.” Providing Aid to Yemen as Coronavirus Spreads Quietly

***

A selection of Direct Relief’s Covid-19 grantees and donation partners:
https://twitter.com/CHISouthFl/status/1273803709915500551
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBmhAtUlzIp/?igshid=1qwfn0vzok7jc

***

Happening tomorrow:
HiDEF is launching AOEFest (“Area of Effect”), an interactive digital festival to bring together the virtual community with top brands, celebrities, gamers, and influencers across music, film, gaming, and culture. The event will run from June 20 until June 27.

***

June 18 –  The latest original reporting from Direct Relief is an interview with the Ecuadorian Ambassador to the United States on how the pandemic has played out in Ecuador:
Covid-19 in Ecuador: An Exclusive Q&A with Ecuador’s Ambassador to the U.S.

***

A selection of Direct Relief’s Covid-19 grantees:
https://twitter.com/lcmsfl/status/1273670934570962944
https://twitter.com/CassFamilyCN/status/1273642987726295041

***

June 17 – Direct Relief’s latest original reporting from Staff Journalist Talya Meyers focuses on India, where health care providers and aid organizations are working to combat the pandemic while responding to damage caused by a pair of cyclones:
One Pandemic, Two Cyclones: In India, Aid Groups Respond Amid the Damage

***

A selection of community health centers who have received Direct Relief’s Covid-19 grants:
https://twitter.com/peternwood/status/1273377381181505536
https://twitter.com/Wellchildorg/status/1273358320175374339
https://twitter.com/WVHealthRight/status/1273270937614508033

***

June 16 –  Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Direct Relief sent 49 Emergency Medical Packs to Dominica so as to equip all of the community health centers on the island. Many of the clinics are remote and vulnerable to being cutoff during storms and landslides. With PPE included in each pack, they are being deployed as health care providers treat Covid-19.

***

The latest Direct Relief original reporting, by Staff Journalist Amarica Rafanelli:
Dominica Nearly Eradicated Covid-19. Hurricane Season Could Change That.

***

Direct Relief’s VP of Research and Analysis Andrew Schroeder contributed to a UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network report on large scale private data agreements for public good:
https://twitter.com/sdsn_TReNDS/status/1272958102493712384

He was also interviewed by Tech Target about Direct Relief, logistics management, Qlik and Covid-19:
https://twitter.com/simulacrandrew/status/1272903773342572546

***

Gamers Without Borders concluded their online gaming tournament series and reported over 1 billion social media impressions and $1,190,000 raised to benefit Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response.
https://twitter.com/gwbps/status/1272529543761285120

***

A selection of health care centers that have received Direct Relief Covid-19 grants:
https://twitter.com/DotHouseHealth/status/1272998122483068930
https://twitter.com/CCCDetroit/status/1272892444393320451

***

June 15 – An update on Direct Relief’s international (non-U.S) response follows. All figures listed are cumulative totals since January 30, 2020:

Shipments (Global, non-U.S):
-99 Covid-19 shipments with a combined value of $21 million

-285 total shipments, including regular support shipments, with a combined value of $187.9 million

Partners Supported:
-70 Covid-19 support partners across 34 countries

-184 total recipients including regular support partners across 70 countries

Covid-19 Medical Materials Donated:
-Total PPE and Medical Supplies: $4.2 million

-Includes 2.2 million masks, 1.4 million gloves, 33,031 gowns & coveralls, and 488,242 other PPE supplies, 31 ICU kits, 1,111 oxygen concentrators, 544 diagnostics, 11 ventilators, and 53 tents

Funds Granted:
-Total Grants: $510,220 total emergency Covid-19 grants awarded to 12 partners across 17 countries

Summary:
Direct Relief has commenced dispatching 116 ICU kits containing intensive care medications, as well as ventilators, oxygen concentrators, and PPE to 32 partners in 27 countries across Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and south-eastern Europe.

Given that the needs of our partner network far exceed our ability to supply, these partners and countries have been carefully selected based on the following: knowledge of the existing partners and network, direct requests for help from individual partners and Ministries of Health, targeted request for information by Direct Relief from short-listed partners with regards to ICU capacity, status as a nationally recognized center of Covid-19 treatment, Covid-19 patient numbers, physical ability to clear and receive the ICU kit given movement and transport restrictions, and all cross-checked with national vulnerability data.

By Region:

LATIN AMERICA

28 emergency Covid-19 shipments to partners in 17 countries valued at $3.8 million.

Direct Relief has a key strategic partnership with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO, the division of the World Health Organization overseeing 35 countries in the Americas). PAHO is a specialized international UN health organization for the Americas and supports public health and health emergencies across all the states and territories in North, Central, South America, and Caribbean.

Direct Relief signed an official memorandum of understanding with PAHO in order to support its mandate and is now working closely with PAHO’s leadership to support the international response to Covid-19 across the region.

Response:
-A shipment of essential supplies and medicines has arrived in Bogota, Colombia on Wednesday, June 10th, for the Ministry of Health of Colombia, targeting health facilities that are caring for Venezuelan migrants residing in the country. Direct Relief’s NGO partner Banco Medicamentos is assisting with the importation and logistics. The request for this migrant-targeted aid first came to us by way of the Clinton Foundation.

-46 pallets of general medicines and supplies, seven ICU medicine kits, 90 oxygen concentrators and an Emergency Health Kit have arrived in Quito, Ecuador, for the Ministry of Health of Ecuador and to the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security, a country with some of the highest confirmed cases and death rate in Latin America. The 46 pallets (8.8 tons, valued at $2.8 million) will be distributed to four different departments in the country, including Quito and Guayaquil, the two largest cities in the country and also the highest risk and confirmed case counts. A reception ceremony for the goods was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Defense, the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security, and four mayors from recipient municipalities. USA Ambassador to Ecuador, Michael Fitzpatrick, was also in attendance.

-50 oxygen concentrators and 25 Emergency Medical Packs have been delivered to PAHO, Haiti where health officials are navigating a humanitarian crisis due to Covid-19 and serious civil unrest.

-Covid-19 preparedness donations containing Emergency Medical Packs and various PPE items sent to the following PAHO Member States: Panama, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay.

-A large shipment containing PPE, Emergency Medical Packs, general medicines and other supplies was delivered to the Ministry of Health of Bolivia, where the nation is facing multiple health emergencies, most importantly Covid-19 and a dengue outbreak.

-783,000 surgical masks delivered to Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Peru. The masks were donated to Direct Relief for distribution to these countries by AstraZeneca.

-ICU kits have been shipped to El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic

-100 Oxygen Concentrators have been shipped to PAHO’s regional offices for distribution to Covid-19 treatment facilities in Colombia, Guatemala and Peru.

Funds committed:
-Direct Relief has sponsored a charter of $7 million of PPE purchased by PAHO, to be delivered to 35 member states across the Americas. The $1.5 million charter is due to arrive in the region within the next 14 days.

-A $50,000 emergency operations grant was provided to Sinergias Alianzas to purchase of PPE, and development of culturally and linguistically adapted educational materials for Covid-19 prevention for indigenous communities in the Amazon.

*

CARIBBEAN

14 emergency Covid-19 shipments to 11 partners valued at $584,786. $150,000 granted to two partners across eight countries.

Direct Relief has a key strategic partnership with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), which represents 18 Member States, as well as with the Organization of East Caribbean States (OECS), which represents 11 Member States. Direct Relief is working closely with and supporting CDEMA and the OECS as they respond to the Covid-19 crisis across 18 Caribbean nations and territories.

Response:
-Four Covid-19 ICU kits containing essential intensive care medications for critical Covid-19 patients sent to the four most vulnerable OECS Member States: Grenada, St Lucia, Dominica, and Antigua & Barbuda.

Four Covid-19 ICU kits containing essential intensive care medications for critical Covid-19 patients sent to two hospital partners in Haiti, one of the most medically vulnerable countries in the Western Hemisphere.

-12 Covid-19 preparedness donations containing Emergency Medical Packs, masks, gloves, gowns, and other PPE items, and oxygen concentrators sent to 12 Caribbean nations: Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Bahamas, Haiti, and Jamaica.

48 Emergency Medical Packs used to outfit the Ministry of Health’s Covid-19 testing and tracing team in Dominica.

Funds Committed:
$50,000 emergency grant to Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to increase Covid-19 testing capacity. To be distributed to Saint Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda.

-$100,000 emergency COVID-19 grant to Health Equity International in Haiti to support the maintenance of health services.

*

EAST ASIA & THE PACIFIC

One emergency Covid-19 shipment to two partners in one country valued at $110,000. $69,000 granted to two partners.

Direct Relief has a strategic regional partnership with the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Center). The AHA Center is the regional disaster management agency for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which is made up of 10 member nations. Direct Relief has an official memorandum of understanding with the AHA Center and is coordinating with them to support the Covid-19 response in the ASEAN region.

Response:
– Five ventilators donated to Philippines General Hospital and the Lung Center of the Philippines. In partnership with Zuellig Pharma and the Zuellig Family Foundation in the Philippines, Direct Relief facilitated the donation of an additional six ventilators and five oxygen concentrators to Philippines General Hospital, the Lung Center of the Philippines, and San Lazaro Hospital.

-AHA Center deployed Direct Relief-funded emergency tents and supplies from their Disaster Emergency Logistics System for ASEAN (DELSA) stockpile in Manila in support of the Philippines Covid-19 response.

Funds Committed:
-$12,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to local partner Bumi Sehat in Indonesia to procure PPE and other supplies to support the continuity of MCH services at their birthing centre in Bali.

-$57,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to local partner HFI in the Philippines to enable them to establish four Covid-19 isolation wards south of the capital, Manila.

*

AFRICA

10 emergency Covid-19 shipments to eight partners in eight countries valued at $152,360. $1,000,025 granted to three partners across three countries.

Direct Relief is working on the Covid Community Health PPE Fund for Africa, a collaborative effort with the Community Health Impact Coalition (CHIC), and the Pandemic Action Network, to aggregate and address the unmet need for Covid-related supplies for health workers, specifically targeting needs of community health workers across 24 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Direct Relief is also supporting the South African Solidarity Fund with $1,000,000 and acting as a fiscal agent for this fund for donations coming in from the U.S.

Response:
-48 Midwife Kits to be donated to Health Alliance International (HAI) and the Ministry of Health of Mozambique, in Sofala province, Mozambique.

-Two Covid-19 preparedness donations containing Emergency Medical Packs, masks, gloves, gowns, and other PPE items, and oxygen concentrators sent to Partners in Health (PIH) in Malawi, and the Association des Diabetiques in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

-PPE Gloves sent to Partners in Health in Sierra Leone.

Funds Committed:
-$1,000,000 to be donated to the South Africa Solidarity Fund.

-$20,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to Jericho Road to procure PPE supplies locally in DRC.

-$5,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to the OGRA Foundation to combat Covid-19 in health facilities in Kenya.

*

EUROPE

Nine emergency Covid-19 shipments to four partners in four countries valued at $3,195,116.

Direct Relief is working closely with authorities in the Lombardy region of Italy and Catalunya in Spain. Lombardy has been the epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak in Italy and the regional health supply division supports 42 health facilities across Milan and the region. In Catalunya, Spain, Direct Relief is working with the Barcelona regional government to support hospitals with PPE and oxygen concentrators. In the UK, Direct Relief is supporting the Greater London Authority through the Office of London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Response:
-750,000 KN95 masks to the UK, Spain, and Italy.

-250,000 KN95 masks were recently distributed to 45 London-based organizations managing Covid-19 and homelessness in the city.

-100 Oxygen concentrators, five ICU kits, and other PPE to Italy.

-400 Oxygen concentrators and assorted PPE to Spain

-Three ICU Kits to Ministry of Health in Macedonia.

*

CENTRAL AND SOUTH ASIA

One emergency Covid-19 shipment to one partner in one country valued at $9,042. $56,400 granted to two partners in two countries.

Response:
-One Covid-19 preparedness donation containing Emergency Medical Packs, masks, gloves, gowns, and other PPE items, and oxygen concentrators sent to Hope Foundation Bangladesh to support the Rohingya refugee Covid-19 response.

Funds Committed:
-$40,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to Hope Foundation to support the establishment of a 50 bed Covid-19 isolation center at the Rohingya Refugee camp.

-$16,400 emergency Covid-19 grant to Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital in Pune, India, to procure PPE for their onsite COVID-19 ward.

-$50,000 emergency Covid-19 grant to Dhulikhel Hospital to increase the facility’s ICU capacity for proper Covid management.

*

No updates since June 5 to the MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA and MEXICO responses.

***

A selection of photos from Direct Relief’s delivery of requested medical supplies to the Navajo Nation last month:

***

June 14 – Andrew Schroeder, VP of Research and Analysis at Direct Relief, on his findings from the latest Covid-19 data:

“Over the past three days, Monroe and its neighboring county, Conecuh, have seen a rolling average case growth rate of over 10%, which places them in the highest growth areas of the country.”

And some of the reasons why those areas are especially at-risk:

“What is most alarming is the intersection here between coronavirus infection dynamics, risk factors in the population, and the relative lack of essential health infrastructure.”

Read the full story here:
Covid-19’s Second Wave in the U.S. is Reaching Rural Areas Like Monroe, Alabama

***

Happening Today:
The Drone Racing League will continue its eight-race 2020 FanDuel DRL SIM Racing Cup at 10 a.m. PST on NBC Sports Network and Twitter.

***

June 13 –  A shipment of supplies arrived in Italy yesterday as part of Direct Relief’s response to Covid-19 in Europe. To date, donations to Italy have included 100 Oxygen concentrators, 5 ICU kits, infared thermometers, hundreds of thousands of KN95 masks, and other PPE.

***

Happening Today:
AbductedByThe80s.com will be conducting Back to the Basement, an online concert to benefit Direct Relief, featuring bands from the 80’s like A Flock Of Seagulls, Wang Chung, Naked Eyes, Cutting Crew, The Escape Club, The Vapors, Nu Shooz, Tiffany, and more. The event will be on Facebook Live starting at 11 a.m. PST.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kbRXGvGdkk

***

June 12 –  Direct Relief’s U.S. Covid-19 response update:

-2,151 recipients

-12,000 shipments

-$88.59 million total value

In addition to community health centers, Direct Relief is continuing to support farmworkers associations and workers’ rights groups with shipments of masks, including in California, Arkansas, and Vermont.

Direct Relief is also continuing to support Tribal Nations, including the Navajo Nation’s Gallup Indian Medical Center and Northern Navajo Medical Center in New Mexico as well as the Pueblo of Pojoaque in New Mexico.

Other organizations receiving PPE and/or supplies are medical and rehabilitation centers, and fire departments in Florida, South Carolina, California, Massachusetts, Texas, and New York.

The first 20 of 45 shipments left this week for partners in communities with protests. These shipments include PPE, supplies, and Emergency Medical Packs.  Full coverage of those shipments can be found at KCLU:
South Coast Relief Agency Sending Supplies To Communities In Need Following Racial Justice Protests

***

A shipment of essential supplies and medicines requested by the Ministry of Health of Colombia arrived in Bogotá last night. The supplies are for health facilities that are caring for Venezuelan migrants residing in the country.

Direct Relief’s NGO partner Banco Medicamentos is assisting with the importation and logistics. The request for this migrant-targeted aid first came to us by way of the Clinton Foundation.

***

Upcoming Events:
6/13– AbductedByThe80s.com will be conducting Back to the Basement, an online concert to benefit Direct Relief, featuring bands from the 80’s like A Flock Of Seagulls, Wang Chung, Naked Eyes, Cutting Crew, The Escape Club, The Vapors, Nu Shooz, Tiffany, and more. The event will be on Facebook Live starting at 11 a.m. PST and will be available afterwards via YouTube.

6/14– The Drone Racing League will continue its eight-race 2020 FanDuel DRL SIM Racing Cup this Sunday, June 14 at 10 a.m. PST on NBC Sports Network and Twitter.

6/20 to 6/27- HiDEF is launching AOEFest (“Area of Effect”), an interactive digital festival to bring together the virtual community with top brands, celebrities, gamers and influencers across music, film, gaming, and culture.

7/10– “Funk Corona” concert at 5 p.m. PST by Morris Day to benefit Direct Relief.

***

A selection of health centers that have received Direct Relief’s Covid-19 grants:
https://twitter.com/ChapCareOrg/status/1271479566918316032
https://twitter.com/Harbor_Health/status/1271197672184188928
https://twitter.com/Eisner_Health/status/1270867453929836546

***

June 11 – Direct Relief’s newest video coverage, about a farm working couple who caught Covid-19, and the community health center that helped them, and their family, get through it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deIWf9uzkQ0

Full coverage here:
A Health Center Steps Up for California Farmworkers During the Covid-19 Pandemic

***

June 10 – Today in Stat News, a Q&A with Direct Relief’s VP of Research and Analysis Andrew Schroeder about the Covid-19 Mobility Data Network, which he co-founded, and how Direct Relief, Facebook’s Data for Good team, and epidemiologists are working to learn more about the degree to which people are social distancing:

“We’ve seen a pretty clear correlation between accelerated timelines to reopen in specific areas and changes in case count” Schroeder said.

Read the full story here:
Can location data capture how well the Covid-19 response is working? A joint effort aims to find out

***

The latest original coverage on Puerto Rico from Direct Relief, by Talya Meyers:

Living outside or in cramped conditions was concerning enough during the pandemic, Rodriguez-Wiewall said. “But now hurricane season is starting,” she pointed out. “They cannot be inside their house. They cannot be outside their house. These people are not safe.”

Neither Inside or Out: A Puerto Rican Neighborhood Devastated by Earthquakes Confronts Covid-19

***

An update from North Macedonia, by Regional Advisor Katerina Takovska:

A donation of 50 of Direct Relief’s Emergency Medical Packs, delivered in February of this year, is supporting the work of emergency services throughout the country. The donated backpacks replaced bags that were, in some cases, over two decades old bags.

Since the way emergency services operate needed to change due to Covid-19 crisis, some of the content of the backpacks is now being used by the home-based care units when responding to the needs of chronic disease patients.

Dr. Viktor Isajnovski, director of the Primary Health Care Services for Skopje, including emergency and home-based care, emphasized the increased importance of the donation during the pandemic.

Through the support of the Primary Health Care Center, and all its associated services, Direct Relief reaches almost to every segment of the population of Macedonia.

***

More recipients of Direct Relief’s Covid-19 grants:
https://twitter.com/Eisner_Health/status/1270867453929836546
https://twitter.com/MNCommunityCare/status/1270388507865944064
https://twitter.com/FiveRiversHC/status/1270793228615323651

***

June 9 – An update on Direct Relief’s global (non-U.S.) response:

Shipments:
-60 Covid-19 shipments with a combined value of $6.8M.

-263 total shipments, including regular support shipments, with a combined value of $182.4 million.

Partners Supported:
-95 Covid-19 support partners across 34 countries.

-173 total recipients, including regular support partners, across 76 countries.

Covid-19 Medical Materials Donated:
-Total PPE and medical supplies valued at 3.2 million

-1.4 million masks, 1.3 million gloves, 36,316 gowns and coveralls, 480,595 other PPE supplies.

-19 ICU kits, 925 oxygen concentrators, 64 diagnostics, and 53 tents

Funds Granted:
-$303,220 total emergency Covid-19 grants awarded to nine partners across 15 countries

***

A shipment of PPE (Gloves, N95s, masks, coveralls, sanitizer) is being sent today to the Pojoaque Pueblo tribe in Santa Fe, NM.

***

June 8  – Facebook, Stamen Design, and Direct Relief created a data visualization tool to analyze mobility data during the pandemic.

Data 14 countries are currently available, with data from another 103 countries planned to be added soon. Check it out by clicking the map below or here:

***

June 7 –  An Update from Direct Relief’s Director of Emergency Response Leighton Jones:

Direct Relief is in communication with state Primary Care Associations from the following states to assess any needs that partners may have following the civil unrest occurring across the country: New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Minnesota, Texas, Oregon, Washington, and California.

Dozens of shipments are currently bring processed, and will include Emergency Medical Packs, hand sanitizer, goggles and masks. The deliveries are scheduled to leave the warehouse early next week.

***

June 6 – The ATX TV Festival continues today, with proceeds going to Direct Relief and the Actor’s Fund. Check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ATXFestival

***

The latest original reporting from Direct Relief on the pandemic:
Nurses Working in Underserved Communities Find a New Way to Bridge the Gap

***

June 5 –  Latest Direct Relief Covid-19 U.S. response totals:

11,441 deliveries to 2,056 partners, valued at $82.47 million and totaling 1.28 million pounds.

***

The ATX TV Festival starts today, and will benefit Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response as well as the Actor’s Fund. Panels and guests today are presented by HBO, National Geographic, The CW, and the Television Academy. Matthew McConaughey opened the fest, which will also feature original videos from Direct Relief.

The festival continues throughout Sunday. Check out today’s stream here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dew0l0uixKc

***

June 4 –  Direct Relief has released a new video update from Puerto Rico:

***

Direct Relief’s shipment to Ecuador has arrived:

1/3 #Ahora Canciller @ValenciaJoseEc recibe a nombre del país una donación de @DirectRelief en coordinación con fundación @HealingHandsUSA que se empleará para atender la emergencia sanitaria por #covid_19 #ObtenemosCooperación pic.twitter.com/AuCe7X5XN6

— Cancillería del Ecuador (@CancilleriaEc) June 4, 2020

1/3 #Ahora Canciller @ValenciaJoseEc recibe a nombre del país una donación de @DirectRelief en coordinación con fundación @HealingHandsUSA que se empleará para atender la emergencia sanitaria por #covid_19 #ObtenemosCooperación pic.twitter.com/AuCe7X5XN6

— Cancillería Ecuador (@CancilleriaEc) June 4, 2020

***

A photo update from Nepal, where cases have been steadily rising and currently total at least 2,600 confirmed cases:

***

In partnership with Coca Cola foundation, Direct Relief Mexico delivered PPE (masks, gloves, surgical masks, face shields and goggles) to 21 government hospitals today, with plans to support more than 90 hospitals by June 15 as part of the largest donation of PPE in the country.

***

Coverage from the National Association of Community Health Centers about how Direct Relief works to support their member clinics throughout the United States:
We Get By With A Little Help From Our Friends

***

Happening Tomorrow:
ATX TV…from the Couch!, a virtual television festival, will feature three days of celebrating TV from panels, sneak peeks, intimate conversations, special events, surprise guests, and more. It will promote Direct Relief and the Actors Guild as charities to support.

Opening day events are being presented by HBO, the Television Academy, National Geographic and The CW.

Find out more here:
http://atxfestival.com/

***

June 3 –

pic.twitter.com/S5SPpuLjio

— Direct Relief (@DirectRelief) June 3, 2020

***

Covid-19 is impacting countries around the world. How does Direct Relief assesses where to send aid? Find out here:
Deciding How – and Where – to Send Supplies During Covid-19

***

Some of the latest recipients of Direct Relief’s Covid-19 grants:

Our amazing partners at @DirectRelief awarded NOAH a $50,000 grant so that we may continue to care for our patients and community during the corona virus pandemic.

We THANK YOU for supporting our programs and services!@AZAllianceCHCs @NACHC #ValueCHCs #FQHCs #IChooseNOAH pic.twitter.com/NWMYk9iKj3

— NOAH (@NOAHHELPS) June 3, 2020

Thank you @DirectRelief & @NACHC for supporting our continued response to #COVID-19 pic.twitter.com/8HcwiUjVUG

— Advantage Care Health Centers (@AdvCareFQHC) June 3, 2020

Thank you to @DirectRelief and @NACHC for awarding Neighborhood Health a grant to help expand our #COVID19 testing in underserved and vulnerable communities.

For more information: https://t.co/e5OFAC9qVQ#healthequity #neighborshelpingneighborshttps://t.co/28J5nAfyC7

— Neighborhood Health (@NeighborhoodHth) June 3, 2020

***

June 2 – The largest Direct Relief Covid-19 support shipment so far to South America left Direct Relief’s Santa Barbara warehouse today, en route to Miami and due to arrive in Quito, Ecuador.

Read more about the situation in Ecuador here:
Covid-19 Supplies Deployed to Ecuador as Cases Rise Throughout the Americas

We thank the generosity of @DirectRelief, an organization based in California, that is donating 9 tons of medical supply to Ecuador to facilitate the treatment of COVID19. @ivonnebaki @CancilleriaEc #TrabajamosPorEcuador​#ObtenemosCooperacion https://t.co/PcyR0OBwRz

— Consulado Ecuador en Los Ángeles (@ceculosangeles) May 28, 2020

***

June 1 – A special update from Direct Relief’s Director of Emergency Response Leighton Jones:

After the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, cities across the United States have experienced consecutive days and nights of large scale protests and unrest. To assess partner needs, the emergency response team has already communicated with state Primary Care Associations in 10 states. They will continue to update Direct Relief on emerging needs as the week progresses.

We are hearing of health center service delivery being disrupted by unrest and/or curfews with closures and reduced hours. We have also heard of some partner clinic facilities sustaining some damage. Some health center partners have also been seeing access needs for food and medications as local stores are either destroyed or closed due to the unrest and public transport has been suspended.

Partners are expressing that there are seeing, or expect to see, significant mental health issues in the communities they serve.

There are also concerns there will be an in increased spread of Covid-19 as crowds gather to protest.

Direct Relief will respond to needs from our partners as they are learned and communicated to us.

***

The final episode of Whiskey Sour Happy Hour hosted by Ed Helms, is on today at 5 p.m. Pacific time.

Proceeds raised will go to help support Direct Relief and MusiCares.

Guests for this episode include Valerie June, Chris Eldridge, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Molly Tuttle, Langhorne Slim, Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Indigo Girls, Chris Thile, Mandy Moore and Taylor Goldsmith, Matt Diffee, Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal, Stephen Colbert, and more.

Watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wECxV34JZE

***

Coronavirus Response: Live Stories by Month –

May

April

March

The post Coronavirus Response: Live Story – June 2020 appeared first on Direct Relief.

Then, on May 20, after the Indian government undertook evacuations for more than 1 million people, Cyclone Amphan, a “super cyclone” with winds of above 150 miles at its worst, made landfall in West Bengal, killing dozens and causing extensive devastation – about $13 billion in damage in West Bengal alone, CNN reported. Both western India and eastern Bangladesh were badly hit.

Homes and roads were destroyed, and many were left without power or clean water.

Within two weeks, another storm, Cyclone Nisarga, made landfall south of Mumbai, causing several deaths.

“It’s like multiple disasters coming up in India one by one,” said Dr. Singh, the aid organization’s president. “The situation was actually very bad before Amphan, and after Amphan, immediately, the situation was so severe.”

Doctors For You was already active in ten states, distributing personal protective equipment and medicines to hospitals; staffing isolation centers with doctors, and conducting door-to-door Covid-19 screening and contact tracing.

Dr. Singh explained that India’s strict lockdown, designed to restrict the transmission of Covid-19, had actually made some elements of fighting the disease more difficult. “Before Amphan, because of the lockdown, transporting items from one state or one district to another was very difficult,” he said. “We were hoping the lockdown would relax, and then Amphan happened.”

The cyclone damaged roads and power lines, all but cutting off people living in some remote areas. “Providing supplies to these remote villages and other districts is very difficult,” said Dr. Singh.

Dr. Alakananda Ghosh, Deputy CEO of the aid group, Calcutta Rescue, said her group was managing to continue providing primary and specialty care services despite the lockdown. “The work was going on,” she said. “Then Amphan came and struck badly in Kolkata and Bengal.”

Dr. Ghosh described being unable to contact patients, particularly those in rural villages, because “the whole of the network was down.”

In addition, the supply chain that normally provided Calcutta Rescue with medications was interrupted, making it harder to purchase medicine. “Patients were crying and saying they cannot get medicine from the local pharmacy. ‘Even if it’s not Covid, we will die without insulin,’” she said.

And complicating matters, according to Dr. Singh, is the fact that many people who had originally moved to large cities are returning to their homes in West Bengal, where Amphan struck. “They are bringing lots of Covid cases, and they have lost their livelihood because of Covid,” he said.

Calcutta Rescue serves a vulnerable population with difficulty accessing healthcare in living situations that range from rural villages to urban slums. Dr. Ghosh said that something like 90% of patients have at least one significant medical condition, including diabetes, cardiovascular illness, cancers, blood disorders, and HIV.

The organization swung into action, distributing food, antidiarrheal drugs, and chlorine tablets to people in affected areas. For patients who needed medication, whether insulin or cancer drugs, they began delivering it, from patients living in destroyed houses in Kolkata to those located in villages six or seven hours away.

Dr. Singh said that Doctors For You was setting up Covid-19 isolation units and establishing “child feeding centers” to avoid malnourishment in the wake of Amphan. “Malnutrition is [already] very high in those districts, and we are very worried that after Amphan, child malnutrition will increase,” he said.

The extensive damage means that many people, especially in the densely populated and badly affected South 24 Parganas district, have been crowded together in school buildings or relief camps. “Their villages are totally destroyed,” Dr. Singh said.

Asked about the safety of putting displaced people in crowded shelters, he said, “We can’t do anything. They will die of other diseases if they don’t provide them the shelter.”

To help contain the spread of Covid-19 in the wake of the pandemic, Doctors For You is distributing hygiene kits with cloth face coverings, soap, and hand sanitizer to those affected. “Mask distribution, soap distribution, that is the only thing we can do. Maintaining social distancing…is easier said than done,” explained Dr. Singh.

He’s also worried about the economic impacts of Covid-19. Not only has it cost many their livelihoods, but Dr. Singh said it’s also slowed support from middle-income donors. “We as a humanitarian agency are struggling to respond at multiple places simultaneously,” he said.

But both groups remain dedicated to their work.

Asked about the difficulty of providing continuous care in the wake of the cyclones, Dr. Ghosh was unconcerned. “It may be hard, but our staff is so dedicated that this hardship is nothing,” she said. “We are here to serve our people.”

The post One Pandemic, Two Cyclones: In India, Aid Groups Respond Amid the Damage appeared first on Direct Relief.

For the latest case totals and donation data at a glance, be sure to check Direct Relief’s live updating map:

May 31 – Direct Relief’s Covid-19 U.S. response update:

Shipments leaving this week include support for health centers, clinics, and other safety net support partners in Oregon, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina, Texas, California, Missouri, Tennessee, and Illinois.

Additional PPE shipments are set for prisons in Florida and New York as well as PATH  Transportation Division of the Port Authority of NY and NJ, the Coalition of Immokalee (Fla.) Farm Workers, Doctors without Borders (New York City), Navajo Nation Correctional Facilities, as part of a partnership with Doctors without Borders, and Henderson Parks and Recreation (Nev.)

Locally, Direct Relief sent shipments to Community Health Centers of the Central Coast and
Common Ground Santa Barbara, and responded to 117 local Santa Barbara essential business mask requests.

Direct Relief’s Research and Analysis team has established new external collaborations with the Office of the Texas Governor and the Seattle Mayor’s Office in order to provide them with actionable data related to the pandemic and other disasters.

***

Happening today:
The Drone Racing League will continue its eight-race 2020 FanDuel DRL SIM Racing Cup this at 11 a.m. PST on NBC Sports Network and Twitter.

***

May 30 – Direct Relief Mexico’s Eddie Mendoza was profiled in Mexico News Daily:

All of us could take a cue from Eddie when it comes to how we interact with each other again. If we manage all of our relationships, from the personal to the inter-institutional, with good intentions and the ultimate goal of mutual benefit, we just might see large-scale positive results proportional to what he has achieved during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I want to show Mexico that if you trust, you can accomplish big things.”

Read the full story here:
Eddie Mendoza and Direct Relief Mexico: a model for the new normal

***

An update on Direct Relief ‘s Covid-19 grant program for community health centers in the United States:
Direct Relief Aids Community Health Centers With $27.9 Million in Grants

***

May 29 – San Antonio Spurs star and Baltimore-native Rudy Gay gave a $50,000 Direct Relief grant to one of the Federally Qualified Health Centers in his hometown.

Read the full story at San Antonio’s NBC News affiliate:
Rudy Gay presents $50,000 check to Baltimore health care provider to help fight COVID-19

Tough times don’t last, tough people do!! Honored to visit the staff at @chasebrexton Health Care in my hometown of Baltimore & present a 50k check via @directrelief to those working tirelessly to treat patients throughout the pandemic. Thank u to all on the frontline, be safe pic.twitter.com/v4Y5MMCB0c

— Rudy Gay (@RudyGay) May 29, 2020

***

290 oxygen concentrators were delivered to the Barcelona Provincial Council:

Hem lliurat a @salutcat 290 oxigenadors provinents dels Estats Units, gràcies a una nova donació de l’ONG @DirectRelief. També ens han fet arribar 252.000 mascaretes , que repartirem als ajuntaments.#COVID19 #Som311
https://t.co/QmLn5cXXyJ pic.twitter.com/gnyIancdrF

— Diputació de Barcelona (@diba) May 29, 2020

***

Coverage of Direct Relief’s partnership with FedEx in the Pacific Coast Business Times:

“In emergencies, everyone is vulnerable to some extent. But some are more vulnerable than others,” said Direct Relief President and CEO Thomas Tighe. “The people who are more socially vulnerable are the ones who rely on nonprofits to access these resources.”

Read the full story here:
Direct Relief and FedEx Cares partner to distribute PPE

***

May 28 – An update to Direct Relief’s Europe response (last updated on May 21): four emergency COVID-19 shipments to four partners in four countries valued at $1,280,947.

Direct Relief shipments since the last update:
-250,000 KN95 masks were recently distributed to 45 London-based organizations managing COVID-19 and homelessness in the city.

-Three ICU Kits to the Ministry of Health in Macedonia.

***

The latest original news reporting from Direct Relief’s Talya Meyers: how emergency managers are preparing for potential disasters during this pandemic.
Preparing for Disasters in the Age of Covid-19

***

Happening today:
Victor “Elded” Calderón, one of the most followed video game streamers on Twitch with 2.2 million followers, will be on live tonight from 7-9 p.m. PST as part of the Gillette Gaming Alliance. Gillette will contribute $40,000 and Elded will be fundraising on the stream.

Check it out here:
https://www.twitch.tv/elded

***

May 27 –  An update from Direct Relief’s Paul Sherer: A month after establishing the Covid-19 Fund for Community Health, Direct Relief has awarded and is disbursing more than $27 million in grants to 518 community health centers. Among the hundreds of grant applications, these themes emerged:

-Health centers are doing more with less. Revenue is down due to lower patient visits, yet health centers have remained open and are asked to do more for their patients and communities. Health centers in communities of color are seeing a disproportionate impact.

-Cities and counties have asked health centers to expand services, both for ongoing care and for Covid-19 testing where public health departments aren’t set up to do it. This includes health centers in New York City’s Harlem, the Lower Ninth Ward in Los Angeles, and South Central Los Angeles.

-A need for PPE to keep both staff and patients safe, not only for Covid-19 treatment and testing but also to ensure that patients can stay safe during non-Covid visits.

-New models of care: Many centers shifted on a dime into telehealth and other flexible delivery models. A transition that in normal circumstances would have taken years was accomplished, out of necessity, in just days. Along with telehealth, clinics have embraced new care delivery methods including drive-through or parking lot appointments and mobile units.

-Vulnerable populations: Many health center patients are among the most vulnerable, and often have pre-existing conditions which make them more at risk. Many of the applicants are located in communities of color and are working on education and outreach campaigns within their communities.

-Loss of revenue from dental services: Dental care generates a large percentage of revenue for some centers, and most dental services have stopped. This is contributing to hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses at many individual centers.

Here is some local coverage of grantees:
Lancaster (Ohio) Eagle-Gazette: Health clinic will start coronavirus testing next month thanks to $50,000 grant

CBS El Paso (Texas): Non-profit health center in El Paso receives emergency grant funding

ABC Bakersfield (Calif.):Clinica Sierra Vista receives emergency grant from Direct Relief

We are excited to share that @DirectRelief & @NACHC awarded Codman Square Health Center a $50k grant to help our COVID-19 Response Fund. We are incredibly grateful for your support for our patients, staff, and community during the COVID-19 pandemic. #CSHC #ValueCHCs #SaveCHCS pic.twitter.com/To8x1owuiS

— Codman Square Health Center (@CodmanHealth) May 26, 2020

We’re excited to share that Direct Relief & National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) awarded our organization a $50,000 grant to help continue providing COVID-19 testing & expanding Telehealth capabilities to our most vulnerable communities. #covid19 #SACHealth pic.twitter.com/J407leTJ0y

— SAC Health System (SACHS) (@sachealthsystem) May 22, 2020

We are excited to share that @DirectRelief & @NACHC awarded our organization a grant to help continue supporting communities affected by Covid-19.https://t.co/H8LINCsmWo. Thank you for your support. #CHCs

— SCHS (@SoutheastCHS) May 20, 2020

***

Direct Relief partnered with Navajo Nation for Covid-19 response:

Direct Relief staff on Friday drove two ICU kits and a supply of PPE to the Navajo Nation, which is fighting an alarming surge in Covid-19 cases. Each kit contains enough ICU medications and supplies for at least 100 hospitalized patients, including antibiotics such as azithromycin and ceftriaxone, vasopressors such as norepinephrine, and respiratory medications like albuterol inhalers.

The two @DirectRelief members Brent Baldwin, Compliance Council, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, and Chris Alleway, Emergency Response Specialist drove from Santa Barbara, California to hand-deliver PPE and ICU Kit supplies that contain Pharmaceutical. pic.twitter.com/YgemJPQZFL

— Ft.Defiance Indian Hospital Board, Inc. (@fdihbinc) May 26, 2020

***c

May 26 – Direct Relief’s U.S. Covid-19 response update:

This week, shipments are going to hospitals in California, Texas, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Washington, D.C., Michigan, Colorado, Missouri, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, and Puerto Rico.

In addition to hospitals, Direct Relief is also shipping donations to the Cape Area Fire Department in Texas, Shared Harvest Fund in Maryland and California, Neighborhood Service Organization in Michigan, and Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast, Texas.

19 U.S. Federal Prisons are receiving masks in a partnership with the American Federal Government Employees (AGFE) Union. The prisons are located in California, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Oregon, South Carolina, Georgia, and Washington.

U.S. Grants Update:
– 518 partners will receive the first round of grants, up to $50,000.

-Six partners will receive the larger $500,000 grants.

***

The latest original reporting from Direct Relief:
When the Town Became a Covid-19 Hotspot, This Health Center Never Closed Its Doors

As Covid-19 Gains a Foothold, a Q&A with the Director of a Rohingya Camp Field Hospital

Opioid Overdose Deaths Plunge in Virginia Counties After Influx of Naloxone

***

NBA Cares continues to support Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response:

.@directrelief is continuing to deliver much-needed personal protective equipment for health care workers in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

To learn how you can support their work, visit https://t.co/xKAi68aVIy.#NBATogether #ActsOfCaring pic.twitter.com/aLVztQNYjm

— NBA Cares (@nbacares) May 26, 2020

Some Good News with John Krasinski launched an online merch store over the weekend, with proceeds from the sale of merchandise going towards charity. Direct Relief is one of the nonprofits featured. To double the impact, The Starbucks Foundation is matching the first $1 million in donations.

Metallica is supporting Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response via the bands’ All Within My Hands Foundation.

The @AWMHFoundation‘s #MonthOfGiving concludes this week with @DirectRelief, a humanitarian aid organization working tirelessly to provide daily emergency personal protective equipment (PPE) deliveries. Learn more at https://t.co/Qr6PCk77uR. #MetallicaGivesBack #AWMH pic.twitter.com/GtEQjOiEB3

— Metallica (@Metallica) May 26, 2020

Musician Noah Cyrus released a new EP called The End of Everything on May 15 during a Billboard Live At-Home concert, which raised money for Direct Relief. Watch the performance here:
https://www.billboard.com/video/noah-cyrus-billboard-live-at-home-performance-billboard

***

May 25 – Direct Relief’s U.S. response: 10,352 shipments valued at $62.36 million to 1,899 partners.

***

Direct Relief’s Mexico response: PPE sent to hospitals and government officials, in addition to using $1.49 million in new grants to purchase PPE and support health care providers with supplies and medicines during the pandemic.

A registered national NGO operating as a Civil Association since 2014, Direct Relief  Mexico coordinates with the Mexican Social Security Institute, which provides healthcare to over 80 million people. Direct Relief Mexico has agreements with the State Ministries of Coahuila, Morelos, Oaxaca, and Quintana Roo as well as standing donation agreements with 14 local manufacturers.

Direct Relief Mexico has also established a partnership with consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to help identify local PPE vendors and to develop an optimized distribution plan for Mexico partners.

Direct Relief shipments include:

-350,000 surgical masks, 10,000 goggles, and 30,000 face shields delivered to hospitals.

-4,275 N95 masks have been purchased and delivered to the National Nutrition Institute.

-Received in-kind donation of over-the-counter medications from Johnson & Johnson and Bepanthen skin cream from Bayer, to be distributed to frontline health workers experiencing skin irritation from PPE.

***

Shinedown’s new song “Atlas Falls,” all proceeds from which will benefit Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response, is now the top rock song on iTunes.

“Atlas Falls” is the #1 Rock Song on @iTunes… WHAT!!!! pic.twitter.com/rhRJGqcIv7

— SHINEDOWN (@Shinedown) May 23, 2020

***

May 24 – Happening today:

The Match: Champions for Charity, a live golf competition

Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning square off against Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady at noon PST. The event, which will benefit four charities, will be simulcast on TNT, TBS, truTV and HLN at noon PST. Tiger Woods has selected Direct Relief as his charity.

Woods/Manning Mickelson/Brady.

Four competitors. One goal. pic.twitter.com/VQbrjamgbn

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 23, 2020

***

Academy Award-winner, founder of CORE, and Direct Relief partner Sean Penn talks with PBS about the quarter million Covid-19 tests his nonprofit has administered:

https://www.pbs.org/video/sean-penn-feetzm/

***

Katy Perry will be donating proceeds from a new cloth face covering to Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response.

Are you into:
following the rules #Daisies promo
supporting a worthy charity
Check out https://t.co/h6XKs67FYc for Daisies merch, including this face mask, whose proceeds all go to @DirectRelief pic.twitter.com/S7OPHyHMFu

— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) May 21, 2020

***

May 23 Direct Relief is issuing $28 million in new grants to support safety net heath care centers during Covid-19 across the United States. Here are just a few of the recipients:

We are excited to share that @DirectRelief & @NACHC awarded us a grant to expand #Covid19 testing capabilities at our PHMC health network! https://t.co/IECSdeqsUe

— PHMC (@PHMCtweets) May 21, 2020

We are thrilled to share that HOPE Clinic has received a grant from @DirectRelief and the @NACHC National Association of Community Health Centers to help us continue supporting communities affected by Covid-19. pic.twitter.com/CXlWIke5K9

— HOPE Clinic (@HOPECHC) May 21, 2020

Thank you to @DirectRelief & @NACHC for awarding Premier with a grant to help with the increased expenses we have incurred for emergency operations related to COVID-19. #ValueCHCs https://t.co/KyVLV8AFas pic.twitter.com/eOhYdYep6B

— PremierCHC (@PremierCHC) May 22, 2020

***

Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response in China: 13 emergency Covid-19 shipments to 49 partners valued at $427,362. For updates from other countries and regions around the world, see previous posts.

Direct Relief was one of the first foreign aid agencies to support the outbreak in Wuhan, dispatching a donation of personal protective equipment to Wuhan Union Hospital just five days after the government-imposed lockdown of Hubei Province. In the following weeks, Direct Relief provided donations of PPE to the primary health facilities in the three cities worst impacted by Covid-19: Wuhan, Xiaogan, and Huanggang.

Direct Relief Shipments:
-Donations included over 815,000 masks, 952,000 gloves, and 30,000 protective gowns. 32 tons of PPE was shipped in total.

***

May 22 –  Direct Relief international (non-U.S.) response totals, as of today:

-45 Covid-19 shipments with a combined value of $1.7 million

-209 total shipments including regular support shipments with a combined value of $158 million

Partners Supported:
-39 Covid-19 support partners across 26 countries

-146 total partners including regular support partners across 65 countries

COVID-19 Medical Materials Donated:
-Total PPE Items: 7.4 million masks, 4.1 million gloves, 46,000 gowns and coveralls, and 485,000 other PPE supplies

-Medical Supplies: 874 Oxygen concentrators

Funds Granted:
-Total Grants: $218,220 total emergency Covid-19 grants have been awarded to seven partners across 14 countries.

***

International response updates by region are ongoing. Today’s breakdowns are for Central and South Asia as well as the Middle East and Africa.

Direct Relief’s Central and South Asia Covid-19 Response (excluding response to Cyclone Amphan): one emergency shipment in one country valued at $9,042. $56,400 has been granted to two partners in two countries.

Direct Relief Shipments:
– One COVID-19 preparedness donation containing Emergency Medical Backpacks, masks, gloves, gowns, and other PPE items, and oxygen concentrators sent to Hope Foundation Bangladesh to support the Rohingya refugee COVID-19 response.

-A $40,000 emergency Covid-19 grant has been issued to Hope Foundation to support the establishment of a 50-bed COVID-19 isolation center at the Rohingya Refugee camp.

-A $16,400 emergency Covid-19 grant has been issued to Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital in Pune, India, to procure PPE for their onsite COVID-19 ward.

***

Direct Relief’s Middle East and North Africa Response: one emergency COVID-19 shipment to a partner in one country valued at $18,109.

Direct Relief Shipments:
– One Covid-19 preparedness donation containing Emergency Medical Backpacks, masks, gloves, gowns, and other PPE items, and oxygen concentrators sent to ANERA in Lebanon.

Full coverage of the shipment here:
As Covid-19 Cases Rise, Critical Medical Supplies Reach Hospitals in Lebanon

***

Happening today:
Ellen DeGeneres will auction off a signed Rob Gronkowski jersey to benefit Direct Relief on today’s show, which will feature the three-time Super Bowl champion as a guest.

The auction will go live today at eBay.com/ellentv. The Ellen Show airs on NBC. at 3 p.m. local time in the U.S.

Happening on Sunday:
The Match: Champions for Charity, a live golf competition

Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning square off against Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady at noon PST.
The event, which will benefit four charities, will be simulcast on TNT, TBS, truTV and HLN at noon PST. Tiger Woods has selected Direct Relief as his charity.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

10 day countdown has begun. Tune in to TNT at 3 p.m. ET next Sunday, May 24th, to watch Peyton and I win.

A post shared by Tiger Woods (@tigerwoods) on May 14, 2020 at 7:15am PDT

***

May 21 – Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response in Europe: three emergency COVID-19 shipments to three partners in three countries valued at $399,946.

Direct Relief is working closely with authorities in the Lombardy region of Italy and Catalunya in Spain. Lombardy has been the epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak in Italy. The regional health supply division supports 42 health facilities across Milan and the region.

In Catalunya, Spain, Direct Relief is working with the Barcelona regional government to support hospitals with PPE and oxygen concentrators.

In the UK, Direct Relief is supporting the Greater London Authority through the Office of London Mayor. Direct Relief’s PPE donations to England will be used to outfit health workers at homeless shelters across London.

Direct Relief Shipments:
-750,000 KN95 masks to the UK, Spain, and Italy

-100 Oxygen concentrators, 5 ICU kits, and other PPE to Italy

-400 Oxygen concentrators to Spain

***

The U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration released results from a survey of community health centers in the United States.

Some takeaways from the report:
-89.5% of health centers are providing COVID-19 tests. Most of those are able to offers results in 2-3 days.

-As of May 8, 127,816 tests have been conducted. 57% of all persons being tested identified as a racial or ethnic minority member.

-Health center centers have been steep declines— 43% overall— in patient visit totals compared to pre-pandemic levels. 1,954 health center locations have temporarily closed due to pandemic-related issues.

-51% of patient visits are being conducted virtually.

-11% of health staff have been unable to work due to site/service closure, exposure, family/home obligations, lack of PPE, etc.,

Find the HRSA survey results here:
https://bphc.hrsa.gov/emergency-response/coronavirus-health-center-data

***

May 20 – Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response in Africa: Eight emergency COVID-19 shipments to six partners in six countries valued at $75,770. $1 million has been granted to three partners across three countries.

Direct Relief’s Africa response is in coordination with the COVID Community Health PPE Fund for Africa, a collaborative effort with the Community Health Impact Coalition (CHIC), the Pandemic Action Network, World Health Organization’s Supply Chain Task Force, World Food Programs’s Emergency Services Marketplace, the African Union, and Africa CDC to avoid duplication of efforts.

The mission for Direct Relief is to aggregate and address the unmet need for COVID-related supplies for health workers, specifically community health workers, across 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Direct Relief is also supporting the South African Solidarity Fund with $1,000,000.

Direct Relief Shipments:
-48 Midwife Kits to be donated to Health Alliance International and the Ministry of Health of Mozambique, in Sofala province, Mozambique.

-Two COVID-19 preparedness donations containing Emergency Medical Backpacks, masks, gloves, gowns, and other PPE items, and oxygen concentrators sent to Partners in Health in Malawi, and the Association des Diabetiques in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

-PPE Gloves sent to Partners in Health in Sierra Leone.

-Additionally, $1,000,000 has been be donated to the South Africa Solidarity Fund, $20,000 has been granted to Jericho Road to procure PPE supplies locally in the DRC, and $5,000 has been granted to the OGRA Foundation to combat Covid-19 in health facilities in Kenya.

***

There is a special bonus episode of Whiskey Sour Happy Hour today at 5 p.m. Pacific time, presented by Ed Helms and the Bluegrass Situation. The now-five episode series has benefited MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Fund as well as procurement and delivery of PPE via Direct Relief.

Today’s episode will feature performances from Watkins Family Hour, Madison Cunningham, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Davíd Garza, Matt the Electrician, Valerie June, Ben Harper, Billy Strings, and Rodney Crowell.

Watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-udulYKyAo

***

Andrew Schroeder, Direct Relief’s VP of research and analysis, wrote about his latest findings related to which populations are most at-risk during this pandemic, and how that understanding has evolved.

Read the full story here:
As the COVID-19 pandemic expands, our understanding of who is most at risk is changing

***

Today on NBC’s The Kelly Clarkson Show: a video from Revival Roots’s Reed Newman about Direct Relief.

Reed is the owner/founder of Revival Roots, an LA-based company that designs and tends to private vegetable gardens. In March, Reed drove to the Santa Ynez Valley to pick up fresh vegetables for his clients.

The farmers gave Reed the veggies for free and told him to pay it forward. So he did– Reed delivered the veggie boxes to his clients, and instead of charging them, he asked them to make a donation to Direct Relief.

Click here to find out which channel the shows airs on in your local market:
https://www.kellyclarksonshow.com/exclusives/where-to-watch

***

May 19 –  Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response in East Asia and the Pacific:

Direct Relief has a strategic regional partnership with the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Center). The AHA Centre is the regional disaster management agency for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and comprises ten member nations.

Direct Relief has an official memorandum of understanding with the AHA Centre and is coordinating with them to support the COVID-19 response in the ASEAN region.

Direct Relief Shipments:
-5 ventilators were donated to Philippines General Hospital, and the Lung Centre of the Philippines. In partnership with Zuellig Pharma and the Zuellig Family Foundation in the Philippines, Direct Relief facilitated the donation of an additional six ventilators and five oxygen concentrators to Philippines General Hospital, the Lung Centre of the Philippines, and San Lazaro Hospital.

-AHA Centre deployed Direct Relief-funded emergency tents and supplies from their Disaster Emergency Logistics System for ASEAN stockpile in Manila in support of the Philippines COVID-19 response.

-In addition, Direct Relief issued a $12,000 emergency COVID-19 grant to local partner Bumi Sehat in Indonesia to procure PPE and other supplies to support the continuity of maternal and child health services at their birthing center in Bali.

-A $60,000 emergency COVID-19 grant was issued to local partner Health Futures Foundation in the Philippines to enable them to establish four COVID-19 isolation wards south of Manila.

***

Gowns worn by Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, Julia Roberts, Viola Davis, Cate Blanchett, and other celebrities are being auctioned off on eBay to help support Direct Relief’s Covid-19 efforts. The initiative was organized by stylist Elizabeth Stewart.

Read the whole story at Today:
Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez’s gowns are for sale — and the money goes to help COVID-19 relief

 

View this post on Instagram

 

I’m really excited to announce the launch of @chic_relief TODAY! (Link to shop in bio) Many of us in the fashion industry feel helpless right now, so we got together to raise money for Covid Relief. And @ebay jumped on to help! 100% of the profits of fabulous donated fashion items will go to @directrelief. Look for the special link to the @ebay auction of these incredible gowns worn by @beyonce @violadavis @jlo @juliaroberts @iamsandraohinsta @kylieminogue @allisonbjanney #CateBlanchett and more. Ebay is matching all donations up to 1 million dollars! So many stylists and brands (swipe left and tap) helped with this site and auction: @elizabethsaltzman @ilariaurbinati @jeanneyangstyle @jillandjordan @robzangardi @marielhaenn @bradgoreski @_leeharris_ @monicarosestyle @mollyddickson @katiebof @aweisnerstyle @jordan_grossman @ramonaczernekova

A post shared by Elizabeth Stewart (@elizabethstewart1) on May 17, 2020 at 7:56am PDT

***

Breitling announced a new timepiece that will help benefit six charities responding to Covid-19 around the world, including Direct Relief.

The colorful watch is called Superocean Heritage ’57 Limited Edition II and is limited to 1,000 pieces.

More coverage at Robb Report:
Breitling Just Released a Second Limited-Edition Rainbow Watch—and This One Benefits Frontline Workers

***

Video game development company Bungie raised almost $789,000 via Tiltify for its Guardian’s Heart campaign involving Destiny 2.

Read the full story here:
Bungie Raised Over $780K With Destiny 2 Charity

***

CNN: A guide to helping and getting help during the coronavirus crisis

***

May 18 – An update on Direct Relief’s Caribbean response: two emergency COVID-19 shipments to two partners valued at $57,215. $150,000 granted to two partners across eight countries in the region.

Direct Relief has key strategic partnerships in the Caribbean with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), which represents 18 Member States, as well as with the Organization of East Caribbean States (OECS), which represents 11 Member States.

Direct Relief shipments:
-Four Covid-19 ICU kits containing essential intensive care medications for critical Covid-19 patients were sent to OECS Member States, including Grenada, St Lucia, Dominica, and Antigua & Barbuda.

-12 Covid-19 preparedness donations containing Emergency Medical Backpacks, various PPE items, and oxygen concentrators were sent to 12 Caribbean nations, including Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Bahamas, Haiti, and Jamaica.

-In addition, a $50,000 emergency grant was issued to the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to increase Covid-19 testing capacities. Recipient nations include Saint Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda.

-A $100,000 emergency COVID-19 grant was issued to Health Equity International in Haiti to support the maintenance of health services.

***

Direct Relief spoke with Edna Adan, former foreign minister of Somaliland, about new and existing challenges related to maternal care during this pandemic:
The “Cruel Beast” of Covid-19: A Q&A with Edna Adan

***

A new video was released today on Direct Relief’s YouTube page, featuring music generously donated by the Avett Brothers.

Check out “Anywhere, Anyone in Need: Direct Relief”

***

May 17 –  This is the first of several international updates in the coming days.

Latin America: 16 emergency COVID-19 shipments to partners in 13 countries valued at $99,420.57.

Much of Direct Relief’s work in Latin America is in coordination with the Pan American Health Organization, or PAHO, a specialized health division of the World Health Organization overseeing 35 countries in the Americas.

Direct Relief signed an official memorandum of understanding with PAHO in order to support its mandate, and is now working closely with PAHO’s leadership to support the international response to COVID-19 across the region.

Direct Relief Shipments:
-50 oxygen concentrators and 25 emergency medical backpacks were sent at PAHO’s Panama headquarters for immediate distribution to Haiti.

-COVID-19 preparedness donations containing Emergency Medical Backpacks and various PPE items were sent to Panama, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay.

-A large shipment containing PPE, Emergency Medical Backpacks, general medicines and other supplies was delivered to the Ministry of Health of Bolivia, where the nation is facing multiple health emergencies, most importantly COVID-19 and a dengue outbreak.

-PAHO has requested 100 COVID-19 ICU medicine kits from Direct Relief, to be distributed to the highest risk countries in their region, including Haiti, Ecuador and Peru.

-783,000 surgical masks were delivered to Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Peru.

-Direct Relief has also sponsored a charter of $7M of PPE purchased by PAHO, to be delivered to 35 member states across the Americas. The $1.5 Million charter is due to arrive in the region in the next 14 days.

***

Direct Relief spoke with  “Last Black Man in San Francisco” actor and activist Jamal Trulove about his “unconventional” path to becoming an actor and his Covid-19 relief work in the Bay Area:
‘Last Black Man in SF’ Actor Was Appalled At Mask Prices. So He Gave Thousands Away.

***

May 16 – An update on international (non-U.S.) shipments:

In addition to U.S. response work, since January 30, Direct Relief has so far supported 30 partners across 26 countries with supplies and medicines specifically tailored to the pandemic.

Covid-19 supplies include PPE (N95/KN95/surgical masks, isolation gowns, gloves, goggles, face shields, and more), testing kits, isolation tents, oximeters, oxygen concentrators, and Direct Relief’s ICU Kits. Total value of these shipments is more than $1.2 million, based on estimated wholesale value, which approximates fair value, on the date received, based on the Wholesale Acquisition Cost (WAC).

During this same period, Direct Relief’s totals include support for 143 regular partners across 65 countries with 201 shipments worth a total value of $158 million.

***

May 15 – U.S.-bound shipments went out this week to hospitals, emergency responders, dialysis centers, clinics, and ambulance services in Idaho, California, Texas Virginia, New York, Puerto Rico, Washington, DC, Arizona, New Jersey, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky.

Direct Relief has also sent PPE shipments to food banks in the following California counties Santa Barbara, Orange, San Diego, Ventura, Los  Angeles, San Luis Obispo, San Bernardino, and Riverside.

Covid-19 response totals in the U.S. since January 30:
1,843 partners
9,659 deliveries
1.1 million pounds total weight of deliveries
$58.5 million value

***

Post Malone is partnering with Direct Relief to send masks to U.S. clinics, and is also supporting Covid-19 initiatives with proceeds from Shaboink Clean Kit presales.

Read more about the donation in Billboard:
Post Malone Relaunches Shaboink Brand With Huge Offer of Coronavirus Relief Gear

View this post on Instagram

Protective gear continues to reach #frontline health workers thanks to supporters like @postmalone’s brand @shaboink, which is donating 40,000 #masks to @directrelief for health clinics and hospitals across the U.S, as well as all net proceeds from #shaboink Clean Kit presales.

A post shared by Direct Relief (@directrelief) on May 15, 2020 at 9:00am PDT

***

The estate of Tupac Shakur will be donating all proceeds from new cloth face coverings to Direct Relief’s Covid–19 response.

Check them out here:
2Pac ‘Keep Ya Head Up’ Cloth Face Covering
2Pac ‘We Gotta Make a Change’ Cloth Face Covering

***

Omaze is offering an in-depth conversation with Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Professor Adam Grant, who specializes in organizational psychology. Grant’s TED talks have tens of millions of views and can be accessed here.

Proceeds will benefit Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response.

Need some guidance navigating the new reality we’re leaving in? Organizational psychologist and Ted Talk legend Adam Grant wants to help!

For your chance to win a virtual discussion with Adam, support Direct Relief’s COVID-19 response and enter: https://t.co/4wmMlrwrDO pic.twitter.com/3Z6RFkDqqc

— Omaze (@omaze) May 15, 2020

***

May 14 –  Coverage from Esri on how Direct Relief uses GIS and data to get supplies where they are most needed.

“Direct Relief, based in Santa Barbara, California, specializes in solving supply chain problems during emergencies. When disaster strikes, the organization determines the best way to obtain needed supplies, often working with private manufacturers to divert products to relief zones.”

Read the full article here:
COVID-19: How Direct Relief Solves Medical Supply Chain Problems

***

From last week: Cabin Creek Health received their donation from Direct Relief.

The West Virginia-based community health center network was by union coal miners in 1973. Today, the system includes 10 sites, of which 4 are based in schools, a black lung clinic, and medication assisted treatment.

Thanks to @DirectRelief for the donation of 250 much needed N95s. Today we fit tested our dental staff and will be reopening our two clinics on Monday. Staffed liked the stylish orange respirators! pic.twitter.com/0eaISkzXJG

— Cabin Creek Health (@CabinCrkHealth) May 6, 2020

Scripps Health in San Diego received their shipment last week as well:

***

Barbra Streisand called into The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to talk about her new video supporting Direct Relief:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axB3GXUSvFQ

***

May 13 – Direct Relief contributor Stav Dimitropoulos reports on how the pandemic is playing out in a Greek refugee camp:

“Coronavirus in Moria is something no one wants to touch,” said Deen Mohammad Alizadah, a pharmacist from Kabul, Afghanistan, and one of the 100-plus-member Moria Corona Awareness Team. “I hear a lot of people coughing; others are running a fever. If someone is sick, they have to go to an in-camp clinic where they wait six hours to see a doctor. Some don’t have the patience to sit around.”

Read the full story here:
In an Overcrowded Greek Refugee Camp, Fighting Covid-19 Before it Arrives

***

The final episode of Whiskey Sour Happy Hour hosted by Ed Helms, is on today at 5 p.m. Pacific time.

Proceeds raised will go to help support Direct Relief and MusiCares.

Guests for this episode include Valerie June, Chris Eldridge, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Molly Tuttle, Langhorne Slim, Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Indigo Girls, Chris Thile, Mandy Moore and Taylor Goldsmith, Matt Diffee, Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal, Stephen Colbert, and more.

Watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wECxV34JZE

***

May 12 –  What has Direct Relief learned after delivering more than 10,000 shipments during this pandemic? Direct Relief staff journalist Talya Meyers reports:
Learning and Adapting as the Covid-19 Pandemic Evolves

***

Fandom, an entertainment media brand that “helps fans explore, contribute to, and celebrate the world of movies, TV and gaming” has created six events to help fans stay connected during the pandemic, and will help contribute to Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response.

Read more about the events here:
Fandom Launches Six Fan-Focused Initiatives to Super-Serve Fans Around the World

***

One of Direct Relief’s partner longtime clinics was featured in the Naples (Fla.) Daily News:
Neighborhood Health Clinic receives donation from St. Matthew’s House

***

Lorraine Schwartz has created an online pop-up store to help support Direct Relief and other charities with 30% of all sales for the next three months.

Check it out here:
https://lorraineschwartz.com

***

May 11 – Grammy-wining band Bon Iver premiered their new music video today for the song “PDLIF” today on Direct Relief’s website.

Check it out here:
Bon Iver Debuts Video for New Single “Please Don’t Live in Fear”

***

Latest Covid-19 shipment info from Direct Relief. Shipments for Covid-19 relief now top 10,000.
Direct Relief Delivers Protective Gear Nationwide to Health Clinics and Hospitals

Direct Relief’s newest video also posted today:

***

A new sports league is coming to NBC for the next several weekends — Drone League Racing:

We are bringing virtual drone racing to sports fans for the next eight weekends. Watch the 2020 @FanDuel DRL SIM Racing Cup this Sat, May 16th at 2:30pm ET on NBCSN & Twitter. Pilot winnings go directly to @directrelief #SIMCup https://t.co/HJwlIxEPG2

— Drone Racing League (@DroneRaceLeague) May 11, 2020

***

Gamers Without Borders continues its charity tournaments until June 7. An update:

WOW!

A total of USD$3 MILLION DOLLARS has been donated to charities fighting COVID-19 after today’s #GWBPS APAC action!

Thank you to all the teams that participated today! pic.twitter.com/2dk0UZFq77

— Gamers Without Borders (@gwbps) May 11, 2020

***

May 10 – Happy Mother’s Day from Direct Relief!

Over the past week, Direct Relief delivered over 1 million surgical masks, 1 million face shields, and other personal protective equipment (PPE) to 1,230 non-profit health clinics and hospitals in all 50 U.S. states that are playing a critical role in the fight against Covid-19.

The shipments were transported by FedEx and contained face shields donated by Apple and 3M, masks donated by AstraZeneca and Cisco, and essential products donated by Vaseline and others.

***

May 9 – Julia Louis-Dreyfus is on Instagram Live today with her mom, to help benefit Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response:

My mom and I just went LIVE on Instagram!

Come join us as we talk motherhood and support the doctors & nurses on the front lines via @DirectRelief!

Join here: https://t.co/yeENruOvWl
Donate here: https://t.co/ZvFKjJ95T8 pic.twitter.com/P2O0bJWUeT

— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) May 9, 2020

***

Gamers Without Borders concluded their Rainbow 6 esports tournament in the North American region with Oxygen Esports overtaking eUnited in Rainbow 6 Siege:

GG’s over to the guys @eUnited it was a super fun Charity event! But with that said we take a 3-0 sweep and donate $150,000 over to help with all the efforts put towards the @DirectRelief program! Thanks everyone who tuned into the stream! Stay safe, and be healthy! @gwbps pic.twitter.com/ABK5ZCaNBz

— LaXInG (@Laxing) May 9, 2020

***

May 8 –  Latest news coverage from Direct Relief:

Talya Meyers reports on how doctors are helping one another cope with the pandemic:
Mental Health Providers are Caring for Frontline Workers, Sometimes in Just One Phone Call

***

Shinedown has helped support Direct Relief during this pandemic through a benefit song, merch sales, TV interviews, social media outreach, and more.

Full coverage of the band’s philanthropic work in Forbes:
Shinedown Raise $250K For Direct Relief Via New T-Shirt And Song Bundle – Brent Smith On ‘Atlas Falls’

***

UFC is helping support Covid-19 relief with proceeds from their face coverings.

Join us in supporting @DirectRelief!

Get your UFC face coverings today https://t.co/JGAytbNL1m pic.twitter.com/b93F0lvAmI

— UFC (@ufc) May 6, 2020

***

Coming up this weekend:

Mother’s Day-inspired Insta Live tomorrow 5/9 at 1p PT / 4p ET! Please join us and, if you are able, donate to @DirectRelief here: https://t.co/L9TxHFZJEi pic.twitter.com/vxHHngsFQR

— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) May 8, 2020

***

May 7 – Direct Relief has donated $1 million to Santa Barbara health care clinics to support them during this pandemic.

The funds came from Direct Relief’s operating reserves.

Full coverage from KEYT, a CBS, Fox, and ABC local news affiliate:
Direct Relief provides $1 million to support neighborhood clinics in Santa Barbara

***

Tiger Woods has selected Direct Relief as one of the charities he will be supporting in an upcoming golf tournament with Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Phil Mickelson.

The PGA Tour-approved event will air live this month on TNT, according to Fox Business News.

Full coverage here:
Brady, Manning, Tiger, Mickelson playing coronavirus charity golf match in May

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Never had much of a hard time beating the colts or a tiger, don’t see this time being much different…

A post shared by Tom Brady (@tombrady) on Apr 23, 2020 at 12:34pm PDT

***

Latest coverage from Direct Relief News:
Amarica Rafanelli covers why Direct Relief’s Research and Analysis team sees reason for concern as states begin to reopen:
As States Reopen Covid-19 Death Rate Expected To Climb

Contributor Leah Campbell reports on how Native Alaskan villages, which suffered greatly from Spanish Flu, are responding to this pandemic:
Native Alaskan Villages, Once Devastated by Spanish Flu, Are Taking Action Against Covid-19

***

May  6 –  Thomas Tighe, CEO of Direct Relief, spoke to Cal Matters on the current PPE procurement environment:

“A strong desire to protect our health workers does lend itself to being exploited for financial gain by folks who are out to make money.”

Read the full story in Cal Matters:
CA sends $457 mil for masks, then cancels

***

Whiskey Sour Happy Hour is a weekly music and charity event hosted by Ed Helms. Today’s episode features Direct Relief CEO Thomas Tighe along with Caitlin Canty & Noam Pikelny, Avi Kaplan, Shakey Graves, Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, Jerry Douglas, Rhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi, and Jim Gaffigan, plus surprise guests.

Watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjTOxY9w1L8

The final episode streams next Wednesday.

Thank you to Thomas Tighe, CEO of @DirectRelief for stopping by #WhiskeySourHappyHour to give @edhelms and all of us an inside look at how all of these generous donations are being put to work right now.

You can give and watch on BGS! Join us: https://t.co/czR92vKRSL pic.twitter.com/P6lqYwjLoV

— BGS (@TheBGSituation) May 7, 2020

It’s Whiskey Hour Happy Hour, presented by @EdHelms and @theBluegrassSituation!! We’re raising money for @MusiCares and @DirectRelief! No donation is too small in making a difference. Donate https://t.co/dyH68YGHRE
watch: https://t.co/RULyxATiFC and https://t.co/7jd90UYDV6

— Jim Gaffigan (@JimGaffigan) May 6, 2020

***

Kevin Hart and Fabletics are partnering to help support Direct Relief.

My partners at @fabletics & @fabletics_men are during an amazing thing….For a limited time they are offering the “One Team” tee ….100percent of sales go to direct relief which is an amazing organization… https://t.co/88NdQ2tAA4

— Kevin Hart (@KevinHart4real) May 4, 2020

***

Updates from Puerto Rico: Direct Relief’s Puerto Rico team was in the south delivering personal care and other items to the newly homeless from the recent 5.6-magnitude earthquake

***

May 5 – A general update on Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response to date:

Since February, Direct Relief has delivered more than 9,000 shipments to more than 1,700 health care facilities across all 50 States and 62 countries.

These shipments included more than 3.3 million masks, 2.8 million gloves, 105,000 gowns and coveralls, 640 oxygen concentrators and ventilators, 3,100 face shields, and 40.1 million doses of medications to treat a range of chronic and acute health conditions.

In addition, Direct Relief has established a $27 million grant program to support primary care safety net facilities that serve low-income communities with high percentages of people who are vulnerable.

According to the National Association of Community Health Centers, this is the largest-ever philanthropic commitment to U.S. safety-net clinics.

To help inform policy and decisions, Direct Relief has created a series of information products in partnership with Facebook and the Harvard T.H. Chan Schools of Public Health that have been shared with California government agencies as well as those of several other states and cities.
Examples include the following:
https://visualization.covid19mobility.org/
https://covid19.cambersystems.com/

***

Barbra Streisand has re-released “You’ll Never Walk Alone” on social media honor health care workers and help support Direct Relief supply them with PPE, supplies, and medicines.

Listen to the song here:

Read more in Rolling Stone:
Barbra Streisand Shares ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ Clip in Tribute to Healthcare Workers

***

A message from Billie Eilish:

“I’m proud to partner with direct relief in helping get those on the frontlines the supplies and support they deserve. thank you for showing you care. stay safe, i love you”

Proceeds from sales of STAY HOME Tour T-shirts and the Blohsh cloth face covering will go towards Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response:
https://store.billieeilish.com/

See Eilish’s latest video here:

***

May 4 – In case you missed it, check out the Washington Post’s profile video of Direct Relief:
Hospitals battling coronavirus are short on vital supplies. This aid group is rushing to help.

***

Shinedown has released a new song to help benefit Direct Relief’s Covid-19 work.
Listen to it here:

***

May 3 – Happening now, #FromMilanWithLove a livestream concert presented by AC Milan & Roc Nation, hosted by DJ Khaled:

***

A Direct Relief shipment that arrived in Barcelona last week:

Cónsul General Robert Riley: “¡Excelente noticia! Agradecemos a la ONG estadounidense @DirectRelief su donación y colaboración con la Diputación de Barcelona para hacer llegar concentradores de oxígeno a los hospitales catalanes para hacer frente al #COVID19” #EnsEnSortirem https://t.co/IKNVtYltJF

— USConsulateBarcelona (@USConsulateBCN) May 3, 2020

And a shipment that arrived in Texas last week, which was sent to the Northwest Volunteer Fire Department in Harris County:

***

May 2 – It’s an (almost) Seinfeld reunion today on Instagram Live, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander teaming up— to help support Direct Relief’s efforts to support frontline health are workers with PPE, medical supplies, and medicines.

.@IJasonAlexander and I just went LIVE on Instagram – you’re not going to want to miss this!

Come join us as we talk @SeinfeldTV and support the doctors & nurses on the front lines via @DirectRelief !

Join here: https://t.co/fvfp8Bgx7q
Donate here: https://t.co/ZvFKjJ95T8 pic.twitter.com/5ErpCYJ1Zy

— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) May 2, 2020

***

Coverage of Direct Relief’s Covid-19 response at NPR/ PRI/ API-affiliate KCLU:
South Coast Nonprofit Plays Key Part In Coronavirus Battle, Sending Medical Supplies Around World

***

May 1 – Direct Relief released a new mini-doc today, showing a “behind the scenes” look at the lives of 3 LA community health care providers during this pandemic.

***

Latest data from Direct Relief’s Research and Analysis team-
Current states with highest 3-day rolling growth rate in Covid-19 case counts:
Minnesota: 8.9% – Stay at home orders expire Monday
Iowa: 7.6% – state re-opens today
North Dakota: 6.0% – state re-opens today
To compare, CA 3-day rolling growth rate of new Covid cases is 2.2%

***

Happening today:
Seinfeld and Veep Star Julia Louis-Dreyfus will be on The Ellen Show today to help raise funds for Direct Relief.
It airs at 4pm on NBC or you can catch it at:
https://www.ellentube.com/

Bon Iver will be donating all proceeds from his new song on Bandcamp today to help support Direct Relief.

Today only, @Bandcamp & @jagjaguwar are waiving their revenue on all Bandcamp sales! Purchase our brand-new track “PDLIF” via the platform: https://t.co/H99lqevNHz

100% of proceeds go to @DirectRelief as they work to get protective gear/critical care meds to health workers. pic.twitter.com/VCOMrMVh6C

— Bon Iver (@boniver) May 1, 2020

Slipknot lead singer Corey Taylor is auctioning off guitars to benefit Direct Relief’s Covid-19 efforts on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/e/charity/corey-taylor
Full story in Rolling Stone:
Slipknot’s Corey Taylor to Auction Off Guitars for COVID-19 Relief

***

Scheduled for Sunday, a special event featuring AC Milan, DJ Khaled, and Roc Nation.

Read about it here in the New York Times:
The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world

Performers will include Alicia Keys, Kelly Rowland, Robin Thicke, Gavin Rossdale and Chris Traynor of Bush, Jay Buchanan of Rival Sons, and Lola Ponce. Additional appearances will be made by global artists and athletes including Jonas Brothers, Kaká, Thierry Henry, Carlo Cracco, Danilo Gallinari, and Jannik Sinner.

Be sure to tune in on any of the following platforms:
AC Milan Official App
AC Milan YouTube, Facebook, Twitter
Milan TV – DAZN
TIDAL (media embed code: https://embed.tidal.com/#/videos/139487281)

Alongside @acmilan, we’ll be airing a special event hosted by @djkhaled to honor all workers during this hard time and raise funds for #FondazioneMilan & @DirectRelief #FromMilanWithLove Tune in this Sunday @ 9pm CET / 3pm EST to see performances by many great artists & more pic.twitter.com/THN141sBhQ

— Roc Nation (@RocNation) May 1, 2020

Ongoing through June 7:
Gaming Without Borders: elite gamers will unite to compete in both gaming and esports tournaments. The winners will give their shares of $10 million prize money to an international charity of their choices. Current charities include WHO, GAVI, and Direct Relief.
More info here:
https://vgwb.org/

May 18:
Gillette Gaming Alliance: Nate Hill, a top pro Fortnite player, will be playing for Direct Relief during this tournament. More details to follow.
Check out Hill’s Twitch page here:
https://www.twitch.tv/natehill

***

Andrew Schroeder, Direct Relief VP of Research, on how he and his team are using Qlik to analyse data and optimize Direct Relief’s Covid-19 efforts:
Delivering Aid Exponentially: How Data Analysis from Qlik Drives Direct Relief’s Rapid Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic

***
Latest shipment news:
11 ICU kits have been sent out this week to hospitals in Connecticut and New York.

Additional shipments of PPE, medical supplies, and medicines this week have gone to community health clinics, hospitals, shelters, and U.S. federal and county government agencies in Florida, California, Kansas, New York, Louisiana, and Texas.

***

Coronavirus Response: Live Stories by Month:

June

April

March

The post Coronavirus Response: Live Story – May 2020 appeared first on Direct Relief.

The Miami-based pediatrician oversees a field hospital in the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where more than 1 million Rohingya people live in makeshift structures clustered closely together. Most arrived in 2017, but some have been there for as long as 30 years, Dr. Mahmood said.

On May 14, the first two confirmed cases of Covid-19 within the Rohingya camp were announced. Since then, there have been more – but not many, thanks in part to measures taken to prevent movement both into and within the camp.

Cyclone Amphan, which posed a devastating threat to the refugee settlement, caused some flooding, but vented the worst of its fury elsewhere. (While more than 100 have been killed, and hundreds of thousands displaced, the full impact of the storm is not yet fully understood.)

During a recent interview with Direct Relief, the physician spoke about the collaborative work being done to keep Covid-19 at bay and treat those affected; the continuation of medical services after the cyclone; and his concerns looking ahead to a season of heavy rains.

Direct Relief: Covid-19 was recently detected in the Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar. Tell me a little bit about the conditions in the camp and how they might intersect with Covid-19.

Dr. Mahmood: The camp is in the southern part of Bangladesh, and it’s a very small area, and currently, over a million refugees live there.

And they live in makeshift structures. There is no permanent, solid structure for them. There are the same issues with structure, and the same issues with hygiene, same issues with space. Their condition has not much changed since the time they came.

So that makes the Covid-19 issue a little bit difficult for them. But luckily, fortunately, the first case was diagnosed inside the camp long after cases had been diagnosed in the country. It took time to reach the camp.

It was primarily because the local administration has taken some strict measures in terms of people’s movement. There were a lot of restrictions [around] going inside the camp or going outside.

And also, the numbers are not yet that high. The first case was diagnosed about a week ago. So far, I think they have fewer than 20 cases. There is no case fatality. For some reason, so far it has been very slow.

But the tension is extremely high. They live very close to each other, the Rohingya people. So if there is a bad strain or people get seriously ill, that can spread very quickly.

Direct Relief: What did people who live in the camp and take care of the camp start doing differently when Covid-19 appeared?

Dr. Mahmood: As soon as this thing happened, people got engaged in the discussion about it in Bangladesh itself. Everywhere, there were high tensions and people trying to figure out what to do. And especially in the Rohingya camp, tension was highest because we knew that this could be a very bad situation if it comes here.

So along with other organizations that are involved, including the health sector [and] the World Health Organization, we did the best we could in terms of [establishing] handwashing practices and social distancing practices – within the limitations – and using masks for the people. All the common public health measures, we have been practicing even a long time before Covid came there.

The camp is divided into small subcamps. In every subcamp, there are some offices or there are some organizations that were working there for the past two or three years, and they know that community.

As I said, they restricted movement in and out of the camp. Also, they restricted movement inside the camp. [People] cannot go from one subcamp to another subcamp just like that.

As soon as the first case was diagnosed, and they tried to find that case, and contact tracing and all of this, some of the areas inside the camp were locked down.

[The health sector, working with a number of different organizations] has a plan to set up a number of isolation units. I was told, I’m not 100% sure, [there would be] at least 1,000 beds inside the camp so they can take care of those patients.

[Camp residents] are pretty worried about it themselves as well.

Direct Relief: What is their access to running water? How much are they able to maintain social distancing?

Dr. Mahmood: Limited. The scope is limited.

We have set up, in our hospital and around our hospital, some handwashing stations. Soap, water’s available, also sanitizers. And inside the camp also, they have set up different handwashing places. But it’s limited.

It’s like a small village, but a lot of people.

Say I have a family of five, six people. They’re staying within themselves, not doing things with others, going around to the shops or to gatherings or things like that. These are the best they can do. And they’re using masks.

Direct Relief: You run a field hospital in the camp that particularly focuses on women’s health. Can you talk about the services that you provide and how those will be affected by Covid-19?

Dr. Mahmood: We have a 50-bed hospital for women and babies. We have an outpatient department. We have a labor and delivery room. We have a maternity unit to admit patients after delivery or any maternal health conditions. We have an operation theater.

We have an isolation unit inside the hospital, so if they have an infectious disease, we isolate them. We also have the pediatric unit, and we have a neonatal unit. We provide around-the-clock emergency obstetric care.

The impact of Covid-19 is that, first of all, we have seen a decrease in the number of patients. Now that [there is] social distancing, they are not coming for minor things. They’re coming for major things, of course, important things.

Before, we used to have a lot of field workers who would go from home to home to follow up on patients. That has reduced because of the limited movement and also staff issues, of bringing staff from outside the camp.

But our deliveries and the emergency C-sections remain pretty much the same. And caseloads are still there.

We started a fever and flu corner, so people don’t come directly to the hospital, because upper respiratory infection is very common in the camp, because of the close proximity and hygienic issues.

Our staff, they have protective equipment themselves, so they don’t get infected. We have conducted many trainings for our staff so they know what to do. And we have put together a team of doctors, nurses, and midwives specifically to treat patients with suspected infection.

We have a plan to set up a special unit, a separate unit of 50 beds to treat patients with Covid or suspected Covid, because it seems like the infection is going to be with us for a long time. We want to make sure that we prepare for it. And we are a part of that 1,000-bed plan.

Direct Relief: So you’ve doubled your beds and taken on a whole new area of medicine – from maternal and child health to infectious disease. What did you have to do to make that happen?

Dr. Mahmood: We did it even before we got any funding support because we knew that it was important and necessary. I knew support would be coming.

I have been following this since it started, and I did a lot of studying of how to set up a unit like this. I spent a lot of time to understand the mechanics, the setups.

I consulted a lot of top-level infectious disease specialists. And I have involved many Bangladeshi specialists that worked in the U.S. on infectious disease and pulmonary care and Covid infections, and sought their help and guidance.

The information is out there. It’s been happening since November [in other countries]. So we had all this time to prepare and understand the disease, the process for response.

I want to mention that Direct Relief, we already had several training sessions, discussions, consultations, and support. The Covid supplies [donated by Direct Relief] already arrived.

Direct Relief: Cyclone Amphan recently made landfall in Bangladesh, and it wasn’t as bad in Cox’s Bazar as people were fearing it would be, but it did cause flooding. Has the cyclone complicated Covid-19 response or medical care in the camp?

Dr. Mahmood: Honestly, very little. We were ready to respond, but the cyclone kind of diverted and went to northern Bangladesh and India. So we had very little happen, luckily, because this kind of hurricane can devastate a camp like the Rohingya camp.

Direct Relief: Are you concerned about any other consequences related to Covid-19 or the cyclone?

Dr. Mahmood: I’m very concerned because of the monsoon time.

Next June, July, August, these are high times for monsoon. Lots of rain, lots of floods, can happen. And now Covid, where you have to keep people separate. Whenever you evacuate people, you have to be together, right?

I mean, this is a mess. Hopefully we don’t have to be subjected to natural calamities. And hopefully, the Covid situation will be mild. We are hoping for a lot of things, but we are worried.

Direct Relief has provided Dr. Mahmood’s organization, HOPE Foundation Hospital for Women and Children of Bangladesh, with financial support and medical aid, including protective gear, to equip workers responding to the pandemic and cyclone. The latest shipment arrived last week.

The post As Covid-19 Gains a Foothold, a Q&A with the Director of a Rohingya Camp Field Hospital appeared first on Direct Relief.

Although Cyclone Amphan slowed to a Category 4-equivalent storm on Monday evening, according to the Washington Post – earlier in the day, it had reached Category 5-level winds – it still has the potential to cause widespread, severe damage in two countries already battling coronavirus.

Like Hurricane Dorian, which caused catastrophic destruction in the Bahamas last year, Amphan is a slow-moving storm, capable of causing massive flooding, and severe winds.

The last super-cyclonic storm to hit the region, more than 20 years ago, killed over 9,000 people.

The storm is expected to move across the Bay of Bengal and to make landfall on Wednesday morning, destroying crops and houses, and causing extensive flooding and power outages, although it will have weakened somewhat by then.

Health officials and aid groups have warned that Covid-19 will complicate the situation as people evacuate and find shelter, making social distancing harder to maintain. More than 100,000 cases of the disease have been reported in India, and about 25,000 in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is famously low-lying, with densely populated coastal areas already prone to storms and flooding. Last week, the first Covid-19 cases were announced in the refugee camps where more than 1 million displaced Rohingyas currently make their home.

Heavy rains and possible flooding are expected in the Rohingya refugee camps, which were affected by landslides last year.

India is preparing to evacuate more than 1 million people, and has identified more than 500 shelters and 7,000 homes to accommodate the displaced, according to the Guardian. The country has been under strict lockdown since March 24, a situation that has already strained the livelihoods of many of India’s residents living in poverty.

Many of those who had returned from urban centers to villages to quarantine will now be displaced, protecting them from the storm but increasing their chances of transmission.

The megacity of Kolkata, with a population of more than 14 million people, is also threatened by the storm.

Direct Relief’s emergency response team is communicating with partners on the ground and preparing a donation for rapid response. The team will continue to monitor the situation and offer support as needed.

To help contain the spread of Covid-19 in Bangladesh, Direct Relief has already provided a shipment of Covid-19 supplies to the organization HOPE for Bangladesh and made an emergency grant of $40,000 to support the establishment of an isolation center for Rohingya refugees.

Chris Alleway contributed reporting to this story.

The post Super Cyclone Amphan Bears Down on India and Bangladesh appeared first on Direct Relief.

It’s possible that Tropical Storm Arthur, which formed Saturday off the coast of Florida and dropped record rains on that state before making its way up the coastline, may cut a path close to Bermuda, arriving in the area by Thursday morning, said Corene Matyas, a professor of Geography at the University of Florida.

Why the uncertainty? Matyas explained that, in her experience, climatology-based models “tend not to handle the early season storms as well because we don’t have as many of them on record.”

Last week, the Colorado State University Tropical Meteorology Project predicted a more active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season than usual. In part, Matyas said, that’s because ocean waters are slightly warmer than usual, and there’s some indication that the Atlantic Basin this year will see either neutral or La Niña conditions, which would increase the likelihood of tropical storm activity.

Tropical Storm Arthur formed as Typhoon Vongfong was bearing down on the Philippines, killing at least one and damaging hundreds of homes and other structures.

But when asked whether the two storms were connected or indicated an active season, Matyas said, “I’m not sure, just because there’s a system in one part of the world, that you would link that toward activity in another part of the world.”

The Pacific storm season is longer, and tends to see more storms in a given year than the Atlantic Basin, she explained. In addition, since tropical cyclones have only been named since 2002, “we don’t have as good of a deep record on those particular systems…to really give a nice trend.”

Nor is there a clear indication that hurricane season is really moving earlier and earlier, as some have suggested. “Yes, we’ve had tropical storms in May before…but we really aren’t sure if there’s a trend of them occurring more in May,” said Stephen Strader, a professor of Geography and the Environment at Villanova University.

That’s not to say that changes aren’t occurring. For one thing, Strader said, there are clear indications that the season is lengthening – at the end, not the beginning. “In November, we’re seeing more of a robust change,” he said. “We’re seeing more storms at the end of the season than we really ever have.”

But contrary to what some believe, scientists don’t expect to see a big increase in the number of tropical storms. If anything, Strader said, the number of storms may decrease slightly.

However, “the ones that do occur, we expect them to be much stronger,” he said. In addition, there’s a relatively new tendency – caused by changes in the atmosphere possibly related to climate change – for storms to make landfall and then hover there, dumping catastrophic rainfall as they sit.

That most likely won’t be the case for Tropical Storm Arthur, Strader said, although the situation would be different if Arthur were located 150 miles to the west. “We’re not really expecting too much with this particular event, except for rip currents, strong, gusty winds, and heavy rains,” he said.

But he emphasized that even an off-the-coast storm isn’t without danger. Rip currents are dangerous for people heading to the beach during warming weather. Heavy rains and flooding are deadly even for people nowhere near the coastline.

“It’s not the wind that kills people. It’s the water,” Strader said. “I’m more concerned about people who live 50 miles from the ocean and they’re not as prepared.”

The post Arriving Ahead of Hurricane Season, Tropical Storm Arthur Brings Gusty Winds, Heavy Rainfall to North Carolina Coast appeared first on Direct Relief.

Here are some of the stories you might have missed about these heroes around the world, plus a few extra stories about gamers, climbers, and world-class athletes who contributed as well.

Remembering Maria, Puerto Ricans Jump into Bahamas Response

Hurricane Dorian was one of the most powerful Atlantic Ocean hurricanes ever recorded, with maximum sustained winds over 185 miles per hour. It took over 70 lives and did catastrophic damage to Grand Bahama and the Abaco Islands. Puerto Ricans could relate — they went through their own disaster with Hurricane Maria in 2017. Led by a pediatric oncologist, a group went, street by street, through the island’s villages, treating people too unwell or immobile to travel to one of the clinics.

Read more.

In the Heart of Appalachia, One Group Works Overtime to Reduce Overdoses

The opioid crisis in the United States continues to take tens of thousands of lives per year. In Virginia, a small band of locals have taken the initiative to help reverse overdoses and prevent deaths.

Read more.

On the Frontlines of Samoa’s Measles Epidemic

Measles, once thought to be well under control, has reemerged as a public heath threat around the world, due in part to lower vaccination rates. One pediatrician traveled from Hawaii to help health officials vaccinate against the disease.

Read more.

Cyclone Idai Destroyed Their Hospital. These Two Doctors Never Stopped Treating Patients.

Cyclone Idai was a historic tropical cyclone that took more than 1,300 lives in southeast Africa. These two 27-year-old doctors went back to work the day after it hit their hometown of Beira, Mozambique, and never stopped serving their community.

Read more.

Fistula is Devastating. This Doctor Is Working to End It.

Obstetric fistula is a particularly awful birth complication that often results in the death of the baby and lingering, alienating health issues for the mother. Bangladesh is trying to prevent all cases by 2030, and this doctor is doing all he can to help the cause.

Read more.

His Patients Fled Violent Conflict to Uganda. He Followed Them.

The global refugee crisis continued during 2019. In South Sudan, one doctor followed his patients after they fled to Uganda.

Read more.

After the Camp Fire, Paradise Residents Got Sicker. So Local Nurses Founded a Clinic.

Last year’s Camp Fire in Paradise, California, was the most destructive wildfire in the state’s history, killing 85 people and doing more than $16 billion in damage to property. Since that time, a family of nurses came together to start a nonprofit so they could better help those left behind by recovery efforts.

Read more.

A Year of Disasters Brings Another Year of Response

If you’ve ever wondered what’s it’s like to be humanitarian worker in a disaster zone, you can hear about it firsthand in this podcast segment.

Listen here.

And some stories you might have missed about climbers, gamers, and big time athletes who are all doing good in their own ways:

One of them was even willing to climb the highest peak (literally) to support Direct Relief’s mission of delivering essential medical aid to vulnerable people around the world.

Read more.

From Tornadoes to Hurricanes, Gamers Rush to the Rescue

Esports and video games make up the fastest-growing entertainment sector in the U.S. Gamers are also rising as a philanthropic community. This year alone, over 6,000 of them donated to Direct Relief for a total, as of December 19, of $1 million.

Read more.

Carlos Delgado, Major League Legend, Steps Up to Bat for Puerto Rico’s Kids

And finally, some community service insights from former MLB star Carlos Delgado, who was working to ensure pediatric patients have access to health care.

Read more.

The post ICYMI: Good Things Happened in 2019 appeared first on Direct Relief.

But learning the lessons from every disaster, every time, is important. Every time, the world can respond more effectively – drawing from past experiences and avoiding past mistakes. As extreme weather worsens, people’s understanding of a disaster’s scope and effect can evolve as well.

Direct Relief has compiled a list of ten disasters that have changed the world over the last ten years. It’s not a comprehensive list, and these crises don’t necessarily have the fastest winds or highest death count.

Instead, they’re events that have had a profound impact on the rest of the world, challenging people’s understanding of what a disaster can be, the damage it can wreak, and how to respond with better vision, awareness, and respect.

Haiti earthquake (2010)

Even before the magnitude 7.0 earthquake, political conflict and a faltering economy had left more than 70% of Haitians in poverty – a cycle of instability that continues today. Infrastructure was weak, with many living in shantytowns.

But the earthquake’s impact was hard to fathom. More than 220,000 people – two percent or more of the population – were killed. One and a half million were displaced.

While the initial turmoil was tremendous, the earthquake also revealed fault lines in international aid efforts. Decades after cholera had been eradicated from Haiti, UN peacekeepers responding to the earthquake brought a new strain of the disease with them.

Peacekeepers also fathered hundreds of children, in some cases sexually abusing young girls, a recent study found. Foreign doctors treating earthquake victims were accused of performing unnecessary amputations and other problematic treatments.

Partly in response to the disaster, the WHO developed new procedures for pre-vetting and approving medical teams who want to provide humanitarian aid.

Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011)

A magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami wave that rose 133 feet at its highest and traveled as far as six miles inland – much larger and more powerful than expected.

That alone would have been cataclysmic enough, but the event also triggered a technological disaster on the scale of the infamous 1986 Chernobyl crisis: a series of nuclear meltdowns and a large-scale release of radioactive material from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

Although estimates of the death toll vary, as many as 20,000 people were killed, in a country whose wealth and well-developed infrastructure made that number feel impossible.

Hurricane Sandy (2012)

A predicted Category 1 storm quickly morphed into the largest hurricane on record (at the time), causing widespread havoc through the Caribbean before crashing into the United States’ eastern seaboard, taking large swathes of New Jersey and New York, including New York City, offline.

People were choked off from power and heat for days, with many trapped in high-rise buildings, unable to evacuate or procure supplies. Over 100 people died in the United States alone, many from exposure or related conditions.

The event challenged the sense of security felt by many Americans, and the frenzy of media attention on seemingly invincible New York City – itself one of the media centers of the world – was unprecedented.

Typhoon Haiyan (2013)

This Category 5 “super typhoon” crashed into the Philippines with wind speeds hovering near 200 miles per hour – at the time, the strongest cyclone ever. No matter what, Haiyan was going to be deadly.

But the sheer scale of the disaster was difficult to fathom. The storm surge – rising above 20 feet in some areas – shocked the world. It swept through densely populated areas, including the major city of Tacloban, leaving devastation in its wake.

The storm killed approximately 7,000 people and displaced more than 4 million.

West Africa Ebola outbreak (2014-2016)

The deadliest Ebola outbreak in recorded history. The outbreak began in Guinea and quickly spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia – and striking heavily in urban centers. Ebola killed more than 11,000 people – approximately 40% of those who fell ill – over the course of two years.

The world was horrified by the deadliness and scope of the outbreak, and developed countries were concerned for their own safety – Ebola cases even reached the United States and Europe. The international community dove in to bolster local efforts.

Concern over the deadliness of the disease also spurred more concentration on vaccines and treatments, some of which are being used in the fight against the Democratic Republic of Congo’s current outbreak.

Nepal earthquake (2015)

This magnitude 7.8 earthquake destroyed homes throughout much of the country and toppled tall buildings in Kathmandu, the capital.

Nepal’s weak infrastructure made the earthquake especially dangerous, but the timing of the earthquake was lucky: Because it was a Saturday afternoon, many people were outside their homes. It’s thought that the death toll – nearly 9,000 – could have been much higher.

Nepal’s mountainous terrain made it difficult to access remote areas, which left many of the injured stranded while rescue workers struggled to reach them.

Hurricane Harvey (2017)

At its strongest, Harvey was a Category 4 storm with 130-mile-per-hour winds.

But the storm brought home an important truth: It’s water, not wind, that’s the most perilous part of a hurricane. Harvey brought trillions of gallons of rain to the southern coast, causing levels of flooding in some places that scientists only expect to see once every 500,000 years. Tens of thousands were displaced, critical access to health care was cut off, and 88 people died.

Hurricane Maria (2017)

When the devastating storm hit first Dominica (as a Category 5 hurricane) and then Puerto Rico (as a Category 4), it left devastation in its wake. Both countries were plunged into darkness – in Puerto Rico’s case, for up to a year in some places.

But the storm drew particular attention to Puerto Rico’s status as a United States territory. 3.4 million citizens of one of the most developed countries in the world went without power for months. The loss of power is also thought to be a major factor in many of the 3,000 deaths attributed to the storm.

In addition, federal aid was and remains slow in coming, sparking concerns about unequal treatment.

Cyclone Idai (2019)

The Category 3 storm crashed into southern Africa in March of this year, leaving devastation behind in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. 1,300 people were killed; infrastructure, including many health facilities, was destroyed; and agricultural land was flooded with salty water.

While all three countries struggle with economic and other issues, severe tropical storms – the kind that regularly plagues the Caribbean – have not historically been a problem in southern Africa. Idai made it clear that, as the climate changes, sub-Saharan African countries will have to be aware of tropical storms and have measures in place to protect against them.

Global wildfires (2019)

Slash-and-burn agriculture caused massive, devastating wildfires in both the Amazon and Indonesia, sickening hundreds of thousands and destroying the treasured forest and rainforest lands.

The blazes pitted palm oil farmers and beef ranchers against the international community, raising the question of how to meet individual needs as the world works to fight climate change and conserve valuable spaces.

And months after the Camp Fire killed 85 people in California and sent shock waves through the United States, a spate of wildfires erupted across the state, displacing hundreds of thousands and threatening a future of large-scale, climate-fueled blazes.

The post 10 Disasters That Changed the World appeared first on Direct Relief.

On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Direct Relief emergency response manager Gordon Willcock, who touched down immediately after two of this year’s most severe storms — Cyclone Idai in Mozambique and Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. He tells us about what he saw during his on-the-ground response, and the unsettling trends he expects to accompany future disasters.

The post A Year of Disasters Brings Another Year of Response appeared first on Direct Relief.

In the hours after Cyclone Idai made landfall in the city at Category 2 strength, the staff at Mascarenhas Hospital rushed to their posts in an attempt to care for as many of their wounded and sick neighbors as possible.

“We didn’t stop treating patients,” said Dr. Shilpa Jamnadas, 27, the medical director of the hospital, which was devastated by the powerful March 2019 storm. Since the roof was destroyed, and the inside gutted, Jamnadas’ team moved into tents outside. “When the cyclone hit, it was a complete disaster, there was not even a room here to see patients,” she said.

But staff made sure services continued. “We treated all patients with malaria, tuberculosis, even pregnant women,” Fino Massalambane, Beira’s director of health, told Direct Relief through a translator.

Beyond the hospital walls, Beira was in tatters, with some estimating 90 percent of the area’s buildings had been destroyed. The storm resulted in more than 1,300 deaths and led to over $2 billion in damage across Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Madagascar, making it one of the most destructive on record in the Southern Hemisphere.

Focused Recovery

Beira is home to more than half a million people, and was in such bad condition that it elicited a visceral reaction from those who saw it, even weeks later.

“It was, wow, after two weeks the situation was very, very bad. It was completely destroyed, the city, the urban area, the rural area. I was very emotional about what I found in Beira when I arrived,” said Dr. Isaías Ramiro, head of Health Alliance International in Mozambique, an NGO working in-country since 1987. Ramiro was previously head of the provincial ministry of heath in Beira’s Sofala province.

Though there was still no power or water, Ramiro and his team set out with the same mission as Jamnadas and her staff at the hospital: to save lives, by transporting people to safe places and and then helping them find shelter.

While doing that, they also ran fact-finding missions for local health officials, who were still trying to understand the scale of damage to their area, and what they would need — in terms of transportation, fuel and people — to get the health system back to full capacity.

After an initial assessment, Ramiro found that all of the city’s hospitals were damaged. He decided to pick one, Mascarenhas, and dedicated his full attention to fixing it.

“We started rebuilding the hospital immediately, the very first day. The impact of that facility in Beira is huge,” he said, noting that it is one of just five major health facilities serving the city.

By focusing on one site, he thought he could fully repair it, instead of only fixing the roofs or exteriors of several hospitals.

“My plan was to do a big intervention, on the roof, and in many areas throughout the facility that were in need,” he said. “We had to address these problems.”

Though the storm had created apparent problems — such as a destroyed roof — Ramiro and his team realized that less obvious, but no less severe, problems were lurking. A substandard electrical system had led to at least one fire and a decrepit sewage system threatened to render the buildings unusable.

“We found that health facility had problems was very old and was not caused by the cyclone, so by only repairing the damage caused by the cyclone and those problems, the impact would be nothing, zero” he said.

Moving Forward

With a grant from Direct Relief, Health Alliance International was able to get started on critical repairs, which would take six months, and included replacing the roof as well as damaged cables, fans, lamps, sockets, and switches. For the sewage system, septic tanks were cleaned or replaced, and new covers were outfitted as well. HAI would also go on to repair a hospital in the adjacent, and heavily flooded, community of Buzi as well.

“Direct Relief, through HAI, was able to support the government to rehabilitate these facilities. It was not only to replace the roof, but it was general rehabilitation. Today, we are happy for the fact that we have health facilities to provide services and attend to patients,” Massalambane said.

Critical medicines also began to flow in from Direct Relief within weeks, increasing the capacity of the hospital’s providers to continue treating the community of 26,000 people in their area of responsibility. Incredibly, the facility operates with only two doctors, Jamnadas and Dr. Neide Santos, 27, as well as an on-site dentist, pharmacists and nurses.

Beira’s health care system would face another challenge in the weeks after Idai, when a deadly cholera outbreak occurred. An influx of about 900,000 doses of cholera vaccine helped curb that crisis, which health care providers throughout the region, including at Mascarenhas administered, even as they were treating thousands of patients.

Now eight months after Cyclone Idai, the facility’s structures are fully repaired, though many pre-storm challenges remain. The most pressing issues facing the hospital include a lack of staffing for the 500 daily patient visits they experience and 200 prescriptions they fill per day, a water supply that is vulnerable to contamination, no dental x-ray machines, and a non-functioning dentist chair.

Life Continues

The hospital is comprised of two buildings, once built during the colonial era and one built about a decade ago. Both are single story buildings, with yellow-painted rooms featuring iron-fenced windows and wall-mounted air conditioning units.

The surrounding neighborhood was still very much in recovery mode, with many houses unrepaired and strewn with debris. Still, life continued as small stores were open in the midday heat, and local sellers lined the unpaved road leading to the hospital.

Standing under the shade of a tree in the yard, Jamnadas and Santos, both dressed in white, explained that the usual, pre-storm array of patient conditions had resumed.

“We see every type of patient, I see everything,” Jamnadas said, with more common diagnoses including malaria, diarrhea, and HIV. The facility operates with a triage system, where nurses decide whether to diagnose and treat patients, send them home, or call in one of the doctors. For more complicated cases, the doctors will refer patients to the city’s main hospital.

“We are just two doctors for an entire hospital, so it’s difficult to manage,” Jamnadas said.

Like her colleagues, Dr. Maria Eugênia Jossefa, a dentist, does the most for the 15 patients she sees daily. Being without access to an x-ray machine, she diagnoses her patients based only on what she can see and what they tell her. Sometimes the limitations prove to be too much.

“I couldn’t do anything for him,” Jossefa said, referring to a 9-year-old boy who came in earlier in the day with a dental abscess. She referred him to another facility in town. She also discussed how she is able to overcome the broken patient chair and lack of electrical tools in bringing dental care to hundreds, evincing a kind of dueling frustration and pride that was common amongst health care providers and other staff at the hospital.

In the facility’s pharmacy, new wooden shelves were being installed, preferred over metal because wood will not rust. Staff were arranging knee-high stacks of drug boxes on the stockroom floor, reaching head-high on surrounding tables before transferring them to their new locations. Technicians at the in-house lab assessed cultures and blood work.

As the midday lull came to an end, Jamnadas and Santos shared a laugh as they prepared to return to the facility’s toughest cases.

“If the nurses have a doubt, or can’t resolve a condition, they send it to us,” Jamnadas said.

The post Cyclone Idai Destroyed Their Hospital. These Two Doctors Never Stopped Treating Patients. appeared first on Direct Relief.

On Sept. 28, 2018, a 7.5-magnitude earthquake brought buildings crashing down in the City of Palu, and the temblor produced a powerful 10-foot near-shore tsunami that destroyed infrastructure and buildings, and liquefied large swaths of soil under buildings and houses. More than 4,000 people were killed as a result, and more than 200,000 displaced.

Earlier in the year, beginning on July 29, a series of earthquakes and aftershocks struck Lombok, an island to the immediate east of Bali. The earthquakes left hundreds dead and more than 400,000 homeless. In Northern Lombok, 80 percent of buildings were either severely damaged or totally destroyed.

Since then, some have or will receive funding from the government to rebuild, yet those displaced from the liquefaction areas lost both their homes and their land, as these areas have been designated red zones that are too dangerous to live on.

For these families, they must wait for the allocation of new land and the building of new housing. In addition to shortages of permanent housing, health services were also interrupted by the disaster.

Repairing and Rebuilding the Health System

Direct Relief is working alongside partners from the grass-roots level through to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, at the regional level to rebuild and strengthen health infrastructure and access to health care in areas that were impacted by last year’s disasters.

Direct Relief is working with long-term partner, the Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center, or MDMC, to rebuild and expand a Muhammadiyah-run hospital, Siti Fadilah. When complete, the hospital will increase both access to medical care and expand the range of medical services available to vulnerable communities living in and around Palu.

Construction on the project has already begun and it is expected to be completed in 2019. Direct Relief is also working in partnership with MDMC, the City of Palu, Sigi Regency, and Donggala Regency on a project to rebuild and strengthen eight earthquake-damaged public primary care clinics. Work on those projects has also begun.

At the regional level, Direct Relief is working with official regional partner, the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, known as the AHA Center, to assess how to further connect displaced families with health services.

Strengthening Care for Mothers and Babies

In Lombok, even more than a year from the earthquakes, many continue to live under tarps and tents, and access to clean water, food, and healthcare remains a challenge. These challenges are particularly acute for mothers and babies. Issues related to water and sanitation, nutrition, and access to appropriate health care, pre- and post-natal checkups, diagnostics, and birthing facilities, remain an issue for a large proportion of the earthquake affected communities.

Direct Relief has been supporting long-term partner Bumi Sehat, an organization that has run a continuous maternal and child health emergency mission on Lombok since August 2018. Bumi is headed by prominent Bali-based midwife Robin Lim and the organization has a long history of delivering maternal and child health services in austere post-disaster environments. Bumi has been running their 14-month long mission out of tent facilities set up in impacted communities.

They have reported that these tent facilities and staff quarters have been blown over multiple times by regular tropical storm strength winds and rain, and multiple smaller earthquakes have rattled the affected community in the last year, which sent people running into the streets and deepened existing disaster related psychosocial issues.

In October 2019, Direct Relief signed an agreement to fund the purchase of land and the building of a permanent Bumi Sehat Lombok birthing facility that will serve the community and stand as an maternal and child health center of excellence for training local midwives.

The future permanent Bumi Lombok MCH center will provide ongoing services to the local community, it will act as a disaster response base in the event of future earthquakes or cyclones, and it will also have an expansive impact in terms of training and expanding local MCH capacity.

Working with local, national and regional partners to restore and strengthen health infrastructure and services remains Direct Relief’s focus in both Lombok and Sulawesi.

The post Recovery Continues for Earthquake Impacted Communities in Indonesia appeared first on Direct Relief.

Earlier models suggested that the storm would crash into Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic as a Category 1 hurricane, losing strength over the rocky terrain it encountered. A couple of days later, the storm had sideswiped Puerto Rico and was cutting a curved path towards Florida, possibly as a Category 3 hurricane.

Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center announced that Dorian might reach Category 4 status. And while it’s likely to hit the southeastern state on Monday, it’s still not entirely clear which path it will take.

That’s not unique to Dorian, said Corene Matyas, a professor who studies tropical climatology at the University of Florida.

“No two tropical cyclones take the same track,” she said. A storm’s future path depends on a combination of its size, speed, and strength, combined with the complex atmospheric conditions around it. The further out a prediction is, the less likely it is to be accurate.

But in particular, Dorian hasn’t been moving the way scientists expected, said Jhordanne Jones, a graduate researcher at Colorado State University. Despite moving through dry air and dusty particles, which often cause tropical storms to lose strength or even dissipate as they suck in air from their surroundings, Dorian has remained a healthy storm system.

“We’ve had a really quiet season so far. During this time, we usually see the North Atlantic come alive, but there’s also still enough conditions that can suppress hurricane activity this year,” Jones said. “Dorian is still powering through that.”

The secret to Dorian’s continuing strength may have something to do with its size.

“It’s a really compact storm, and that seems to be helping it move through without much interference,” Jones said. “It has a little insulation from the circulation around it.”

It’s likely to get stronger, Jones said, as it moves toward moister air, which tends to help tropical storms intensify.

In addition, there’s not much of a strong flow in any one direction, which makes it harder to predict where the storm will move. “In essence, Dorian is free to move where it pleases,” said Jones.

The change in Dorian’s track seems to be due in part to smaller storms on its eastern side, which have pulled its center off its original course. That change in track meant that Puerto Rico, still vulnerable from Maria, was largely spared, as was the island Hispaniola (where the Dominican Republic and Haiti are  located.)

But it also meant that Dorian didn’t have its anticipated collision with the islands’ bumpy terrain, which would have slowed and weakened it.

The region has spent days in anticipation, but Matyas explained that hurricanes are less predictable than most people realize.

Look at a hurricane map, and you’ll see the projected path of the storm’s movement in a funnel shape that increases in width – often called the “cone of uncertainty” or occasionally (and more dramatically) “the cone of terror.” It’s easy to assume that that cone gives some sense of the size of the storm or of the surrounding danger zone.

That’s just not the case, Matyas said. Instead, “the idea is that there is a 67% likelihood of the storm’s center passing in that cone” (and a 33% likelihood the center of the storm will veer outside of that cone.)

Just looking at a cone of uncertainty won’t give you an idea of how wide the storm’s breadth is, or even much of a sense of who’s in danger.

Being far from a hurricane’s projected center is no guarantee of safety. “The outer edge of the storm can also be very dangerous,” with strong winds, storm surge, and heavy rainfall occurring up to about 200 miles from the center, Matyas said.

What does all this uncertainty mean for the people (possibly) in the storm’s path?

“[Hurricane Dorian] in particular… We really don’t have any certainty on,” said Aniruddha Upadhyay, director of environment of care and safety at Miami Beach Community Health Center.

In some sense, Upadhyay said, that makes preparation more complicated. While a lot can be done to get ready for a storm in advance – everything from organizing staff to transporting temperature-sensitive medications to a safe location – an emergency response can’t fully kick in until there’s definitely an emergency.

Nonetheless, he said, “it’s dynamic right now, but we are prepared. We’re not waiting until there is a hurricane warning.”

Angie Lindsey, a professor of Family, Youth, and Community Services who studies disaster preparedness and recovery at the University of Florida, said the uncertainty is just part and parcel of living in a part of the world that experiencing tropical storms.

“As a Floridian, and I think with a lot of folks that live in the state, you prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” she said.

Besides, much of the work of preparing for a hurricane comes long before a community finds itself in one’s crosshairs.

Pre-positioning vital supplies, having an emergency plan, and installing solar cells or a generator can be done months and even years ahead of a storm.

Part of being well-prepared, Lindsey said, is knowing that there are a lot of unknowns. “We all have to be flexible and reactive to some extent with hurricane season,” she said.

The storm isn’t likely to go near Lindsey’s community, but “we’re still going to prepare, because you never know if one of these storms is going to turn at the last second.”

The post As Disasters Go, Hurricanes are Predictable. That’s Not Saying Much. appeared first on Direct Relief.

More than 670 deaths have been reported thus far, and millions have been displaced or significantly affected. Many are still missing, including children.

Dr. Ravikant Singh, founder of the nonprofit Doctors for You, recalls making his way to a village in Bihar, one of the poorest states in India. A baby who had been delivered that morning had spent hours still attached to the placenta – there was simply no one available to care for mother and child.

Throughout the region, houses and even entire villages have been submerged. “Even in higher-up places, many villages in Bangladesh are underwater,” said Iftikher Mahmood, founder of the HOPE Foundation for Women and Children of Bangladesh.

For people living in affected areas in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, the difficulties have just begun.

Immediate dangers

It’s the start of monsoon season, a yearly seasonal change that causes the majority of South Asia’s rainfall to occur over just three months in the summertime. A new storm arriving Thursday is expected to blanket 90% of India with rainfall – which could, in turn, cause additional flooding, rising rivers, and landslides.

Each major storm can have devastating effects that continue for months or even years after the initial burst of rain and flooding – long after the news cycle has forgotten it.

More immediately, many people in flood-affected areas, particularly in India, are still cut off from most contact with the outside world, making it difficult to deliver aid.

Food supplies have been damaged and water in flood-affected areas has been contaminated with sewage and other unsanitary material. That means many people are currently going without food, clean water, or access to medicines. If they get sick or are already dealing with chronic conditions, there’s no one to care for them.

Organizations like the HOPE Foundation’s field hospital, Mountain Heart Nepal, and Doctors for You have responded by setting up medical camps in flood-affected regions, making their way to isolated villages to treat patients, and providing everything from clean water to soap to people living in overcrowded facilities and makeshift shelters.

They’re already treating injuries and snakebites, along with diarrhea and skin diseases – both complications from contact with contaminated water.

Looking ahead

They’re also gearing up to address the serious, often deadly diseases that can follow a storm or flood. Cholera, which spreads rapidly when people drink water contaminated by the disease, is a visceral fear.

“After the flooding…we saw lots of standing water,” said Dr. Aban Gautam, president of the aid group Mountain Heart Nepal. Standing water attracts mosquitoes, greatly increasing the potential for malaria, dengue, and other vector-borne diseases.

Crowded conditions in shelters and camps can cause respiratory diseases like pneumonia to spread quickly. And people with chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension are less likely to have access to the vital medications needed to manage their conditions.

All of these are compounded by malnutrition, already a risk for the largely poor population affected by the storm. “Since they belong to low socioeconomic groups, they are vulnerable,” Dr. Gautam said.

He explained that many of the people affected are subsistence farmers and members of lower castes. (Indian society is stratified into strict layers determined by status and occupation. Members of some low castes, as well as those outside the caste system, have famously been called “untouchables.”)

In Nepal, Dr. Gautam said, people are slowly returning to their homes. “People are starting to rebuild,” he said. But that doesn’t mean that life will return to normal anytime soon.

For one thing, the threat of disease won’t disappear. Dr. Gautam is concerned that he’ll see outbreaks of cholera, diarrhea, and vector-borne diseases in Nepal in the coming weeks.

Economic impacts

But in addition, monsoon season has a profound impact on South Asia’s agriculture and, by extension, its economy. “Such a large number of people are so dependent on this intensively seasonal rainfall,” said Sunil Amrith, a professor of South Asian studies at Harvard University.

“If the monsoons are late, or if they fall short of normal expectations, or they are in excess, they can ruin a harvest, and in a predominantly rural country, that really matters.”

Many of the people in this region are rural farmers for whom a bad harvest is devastating. “The whole family depends on income from livestock and from farming,” Dr. Gautam said. In the wake of the storm, livestock have been drowned and paddy fields destroyed.

Highlighting the situation

Direct Relief has responded by providing requested medical supplies and an emergency cash grant, helping aid organizations in the region set up medical camps, travel to flood-affected areas to provide services, and distribute urgently needed medical supplies.

The organization has aided in other disasters in the region, including Cyclone Fani, which hit northeastern India earlier this year, as well as heavy floods in Nepal in 2017 and in Kerala, India in 2018.

Dr. Singh explained that frequent disasters cause “donor fatigue,” in which people are less likely to help out when faced with repeated requests for donation.

To compound matters, Dr. Singh said, “the local media is not giving much attention, or maybe they don’t want to highlight the situation on the ground.”

There may be an explanation for the relative lack of media coverage in the region and elsewhere. “In some sense, I suppose, one might call it an ordinary disaster,” said Amrith. “It’s almost as if these things are expected in South Asia, under the radar.”

“A force that governs the world”

And the future may be more volatile – in part because of climate change. “The monsoon has become more prone to extremes,” Amrith said. Both the where and when have become less predictable: monsoon rains have been falling in unexpected places, and heavy rains are interspersed with longer dry periods.

Amrith said that monsoon seasons have always had a profound – and variable effect – on South Asian economic and cultural life. “The monsoon is portrayed as a force that governs the world” even in centuries-old literature.

“But they really are changing,” he added. “They’re becoming much more unpredictable and much more dangerous.”

The post Widespread Flooding Has Devastated South Asia. It’s Only the Beginning. appeared first on Direct Relief.

Requested medical aid is now en route to Dhulikhel Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, where the hospital’s emergency response teams have been working to reach flood-impacted communities in southern Nepal. Medical aid shipped to the group includes oral rehydration salts, personal protective equipment for health workers, hygiene items, medical tents and wound care items

While this storm system has started to dissipate, the region is still threatened by a monsoon season that runs through September.

As Waters Rise, Health Concerns Follow

Flood-related disasters often precipitate a host of health issues, including water- and vector-borne diseases. Cholera and typhoid can arise if sanitation and water delivery systems are damaged or destroyed, and mosquitoes can multiply in standing water, leading to a proliferation of malaria and dengue.

When people are evacuated from their homes and communities, unsanitary or crowded conditions in the places where they’ve been relocated can lead to rapid transmission of communicable diseases. Evacuated people may also lack access to medications needed to manage chronic conditions, which can cause them to spiral into a medical emergency.

Responding Across South Asia

In response to an influx of requests from our extensive partner network throughout the affected regions, Direct Relief has mobilized emergency medical donations and cash support throughout the region.

In Nepal, flood waters reached 30 of the nation’s 77 districts, including the capital, Kathmandu. While the monsoon rains were still falling, Dhulikhel Hospital in Kathmandu dispatched an emergency response team to southern Nepal. In support of their relief efforts Direct Relief built an 11-pallet donation of specifically requested flood relief supplies that shipped Friday.

Direct Relief is also supporting Mountain Heart Nepal’s response, which included sending assessment team to the flood affected region. Mountain Heart Nepal plans to conduct mobile medical camps with their team of volunteer doctors and nurses over the coming weeks. Following the 2015 Nepal Earthquake, Direct Relief purchased a 4×4 for Mountain Heart to safely transport their medical staff and supplies through remote and mountainous terrain. To equip the Mountain Heart Nepal medical camps, Direct Relief is dispatching an Emergency Health Kit, kept stocked at the organization’s warehouse for rapid deployment after a disaster. Each Emergency Health Kit contains over 200 essential medicines and medical supplies and is designed to treat 1,000 people for one month following a natural disaster.

Direct Relief also supported Mountain Heart Nepal during the 2017 Nepal Floods that killed over 800 people. Since the 2015 Nepal Earthquake, Direct Relief has been one of the largest providers of medical aid to the country, with more than $66 million in medical aid reaching local health providers.

Further south, the state of Assam in India has seen 4.3 million people affected by the floods, forcing over 85,000 to escape into densely packed displacement camps. In the last 12 months, Direct Relief has responded to two major disasters in India, the widespread flooding in Kerala and Cyclone Fani in northeastern India. Direct Relief was a major medical response actor during the floods in Kerala, dispatching 12 tons of medical aid to Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Meenakshi Mission Hospital.

In Bangladesh, where recent storms killed 29 people, remains especially vulnerable during monsoon and cyclone season due to the Rohingya refugees who fled violence in Myanmar and now reside in camps in the flood-prone coastal district of Cox’s Bazar. Direct Relief’s long-time partner, the HOPE Foundation for Women and Children of Bangladesh, based in Cox’s Bazar, specializes in maternal and child healthcare, and has established a field hospital in one of the largest Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. HOPE was able to immediately respond to the flooded out Rohingya settlements with Direct Relief-supplied oral rehydration salts and other relief items.

Direct Relief will continue shipment of requested medical aid to for flood response in the coming days.

The post Medical Aid En Route as Deadly Flooding Continues in South Asia appeared first on Direct Relief.

To bolster the facility’s response capacity, global humanitarian aid organization Direct Relief committed $500,000 in funding for the procurement and stockpiling of essential emergency materials for deployment in emergencies throughout the ASEAN region.

“For disaster-prone areas, the lessons of preparation, resiliency, and prevention need not be learned again,” said Thomas Tighe, President and CEO of Direct Relief. “That’s why Direct Relief is so very pleased to support these important strengthening efforts with the AHA Centre, which will ensure more people receive support when they most need it.”

“Coordination, collaboration, and partnerships are the cornerstones of effective emergency response operations. It is for these reasons that we continuously expand and broaden our partnership with key players in the humanitarian sector,” said Adelina Kamal, AHA Centre Executive Director.

Kamal added that Direct Relief, which signed a formal agreement with ASEAN’s AHA Centre three years ago, is an important partner for AHA Centre on key initiatives, including during the Central Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia in 2018. “We are positive that this partnership will be one of the most enduring and successful engagements and for this, we are looking forward to a stronger collaboration with Direct Relief,” she said.

In addition to the strategic stockpile located in the Philippines, ASEAN is establishing a network of DELSA stockpiles in Malaysia and Thailand. Direct Relief is also funding and providing disaster relief items in both Malaysia and the Philippines, and has provided medical aid deployed to disasters by the AHA Centre, working with the Malaysian Air Force, from the Malaysian facility.

The new warehouse is strategically located in the Philippines and will enable rapid response to the region’s frequent natural disasters, including typhoons, flooding, landslides and earthquakes.

The Philippines is at high risk from cyclones, earthquakes, floods, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and wildfires. Since 1990, the Philippines has been affected by 565 natural disasters that have claimed the lives of some 70,000 Filipinos and caused an estimated $23 billion dollars in damages, according to the World Bank.

Working with ASEAN, the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC), and the AHA Centre, Direct Relief will help ensure that high priority relief items are ready to go before a disaster occurs. Similar to Direct Relief’s Hurricane Preparedness Program, where strategic stockpiles of medical aid are pre-positioned in hurricane-prone areas, the strategic stockpiles in the ASEAN region will enable rapid response to disasters.

The post Expanding Disaster Response Capacity in ASEAN Region appeared first on Direct Relief.

The storm would be the second one to hit India this year, following Cyclone Fani in May. That storm, which made landfall in the Indian state of Odisha, led to deaths of at least 89 people. Authorities were able to evacuate about 1 million people ahead of the storm’s impact.

Cyclone Vayu would be the strongest cyclone to hit Gujarat in 20 years, as it is rare for cyclones to make landfall so far north in the Arabian Sea.

Direct Relief has staff in India, is in communication with local healthcare partners across the region, and is ready to respond should medical aid be requested.

The post Hundreds of Thousands in India Evacuated Ahead of Severe Cyclone appeared first on Direct Relief.

More than 1,000 people across the region were killed as a result, and 1.85 million people left in need of assistance in Mozambique alone. Widespread flooding also impacted the neighboring countries of Malawi and Zimbabwe.

Water sources, crops, buildings, roads, and other infrastructure were damaged or destroyed, creating an extended and complex emergency response period, as government agencies and international responders raced to reach stranded communities in Mozambique.

Weeks Later, a Second Cyclone

Then on April 25, Tropical Cyclone Kenneth struck northern Mozambique between the districts of Macomia and Mocimboa da Praia in Cabo Delgado province. Kenneth is the strongest recorded cyclone to hit Mozambique. So far there have been 45 recorded cyclone-related fatalities and a cholera outbreak has been declared.

Direct Relief’s Response

After Idai made landfall, Direct Relief dispatched an emergency response team to coordinate with local authorities, UN agencies, local partners, to assess the need and damage in the affected area, and to prepare for incoming donations of medicines and medical supplies.

The team worked closely with local partners Health Alliance International and the Chissano Foundation, while also coordinating with United Nations and government agencies. In the initial stages of the response, communities remained besieged by floodwaters and some 1.8 million people in Mozambique were in need of assistance. Direct Relief’s key local partner, Health Alliance International, has been working in Mozambique for three decades, and was uniquely placed to understand the key health needs and potential pressure points in the health system.

This experience and local expertise led to a focus on supporting primary health clinics that are the initial point of entry into the health system, particularly for pregnant and new mothers. This knowledge, combined with the need to respond to the cholera outbreak, shaped Direct Relief’s delivery of medicines, medical supplies, and funding.

Ongoing Support

As a result of an outpouring of support from donors around the world, Direct Relief has delivered or has in transit 16 tons of medicines and supplies worth more than $3.6 million to partner agencies and healthcare facilities caring for cyclone survivors in Mozambique and Malawi since the disaster, and has also provided cash grants to locally-run organizations to help with recovery efforts.

Working in conjunction with a number of companies to acquire in-kind resources – medicines, supplies, and transportation – enabled Direct Relief to leverage the generous support from donors and ultimately help more people in Mozambique and across the affected region.

With the objective of making the most efficient and effective humanitarian intervention with the resources available, Direct Relief has been coordinating with experienced local partners; gathering, mapping and analyzing data on the spread of cholera and the movement of populations in cooperation with the WHO; and conducting direct on-the-ground health facility assessment and government coordination by way of the Direct Relief Emergency Response Team. This triangulation of conversation, observation, and hard quantitative data has shaped Direct Relief’s response.

From Disaster to Recovery

Direct Relief – as a matter of policy – is committed to spending 100 percent of the remaining Cyclone Idai donated funds in the affected areas. These funds will be used to strengthen primary healthcare infrastructure, specifically focusing on the provision of services to the most vulnerable people in society and help to prepare communities for future disasters.

Direct Relief’s efforts have focused on, and will continue, in four areas:

1. Supporting Primary Health Care & Primary Health Facility Rehabilitation – Providing cash and medical support to partners to enable rehabilitation and function of primary health facilities in the most affected provinces of Beira and Sofala.

2. Targeting Maternal and Child Health Vulnerability – Looking to provide cash grants, midwife kits and other maternal and child health supplies to support midwives and birthing centers serving the affected population. Direct Relief will also continue to support facilities conducting fistula repair in Mozambique.

3. Responding to Cholera – Providing high-level data mapping to support the national and WHO cholera response. As well as, procuring and assembling donations of cholera response medicines and supplies based on need and cholera mapping.

4. Building Resiliency: Disaster Preparedness – Looking to prepare local partners for future cyclone disasters by providing Emergency Health Kits, Emergency Medical Backpacks, and other medical materials and to ensure health facilities are built back better.

Direct Relief’s ongoing response will continue to support needed medical services while helping to rebuild local health systems and strengthen resiliency in the hardest-hit areas.

The post After Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, Recovery in Mozambique Continues appeared first on Direct Relief.

According to the most recent reports from the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization, three districts in the province of Cabo Delgado (Pemba, Mecufi and Metuge) have seen outbreaks of cholera since Cyclone Kenneth made landfall.

The coastal city of Pemba is the center of these outbreaks, with 108 total cases, followed by Metuge with 19, and Mecufi with 10.New cases are being detected regularly, with the most recent reporting, on May 9, recording one of the highest total case loads since the storm.

In addition to patient treatment with antibiotics and rehydration, Mozambique’s second mass cholera vaccination campaign of the year is scheduled for the end of this week.According to the most recent epidemiological bulletin, “Over 516,000 doses of the Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) were received by the authorities and health partners in Pemba on 12 May, for the vaccination campaign scheduled to start on 16 May.” The previous cholera vaccination campaign in Beira saw over 900,000 individuals vaccinated across three districts in the path of Cyclone Idai.

The 516,000 doses, administered in single-dose format to maximize the reach of the current supply, covers a considerable swath of the population in Cabo Delgado. However, health authorities remain vigilant to any potential changes in the geography of case detections, which might alter calculations of the total at-risk population and the scope and focus areas for vaccines.

Epidemiologists at Harvard School of Public Health, with whom Direct Relief, Nethope, Facebook’s Data for Good team, and the Northwestern University School of Medicine have been collaborating since the aftermath of Cyclone Idai, have updated their model to understand how the emergence of cholera cases may spread using a very simple gravity model, in order to make it better suited to possible tactical planning efforts for cholera vaccination. More detail about the model and its methodology can be found here.

Case counts for new cholera detections can be input variably. The model combines cases with a gravity model (simulated population movement based on population estimates from before the flood), flood extent, previous cholera incidence and El Nino sensitivity measures, to rank surrounding areas with respect to risk of cholera emerging there. As new case totals are updated, the probability of future outbreak areas may change in significant ways, alerting health authorities to the need for revised planning estimates. The model uses district boundaries for population. Therefore, new case detections recorded at the sub-district level need to be combined into district-level totals for estimation.

Members of the health cluster, including the World Health Organization and the Mozambique Ministry of Health, have been briefed on the details and functionality of this model. Documentation is in the process of being translated to Portuguese to ensure that local actors are fully informed. As the campaign is rolled out over the coming weeks, and new information becomes available, additional modeling efforts can be adapted and revised to reflect improved understanding of the outbreaks.

Click here to explore the model.

The post Predicting the Spread of Cholera in Mozambique as Case Count Rises appeared first on Direct Relief.

Damage reports are still emerging, but more than 1 million people were evacuated from coastal areas of India as a precaution.

As the storm moves along India’s eastern coastline, neighboring Bangladesh is also bracing for impacts, and officials were working to evacuate 2.1 million people from coastal areas on Friday.

Even though the flood-prone country isn’t in the direct path of the storm, rain bands and high winds could inundate low-lying areas of Bangladesh quickly.

Those at increased risk include Rohingya refugees living in settlements outside of Cox’s Bazar. Many reside in homes built without permanent foundations, placing them at risk of landslides and flash flooding.

Direct Relief is working with local staff inside India and with health provider networks in India and Bangladesh.

One of those groups is Doctors for You, an  organization that rapidly dispatched a medical team to Odisha, India, which was badly impacted by the cyclone.

The medical team will be focusing on care for vulnerable people, including women, children and adolescents, the group reported. They’ll be providing primary healthcare and reproductive health services with mobile health units and medical outposts.

Another organization Direct Relief is coordinating with is Calcutta Rescue, an organization responding with a medical team in the Kolkata area.

In Bangladesh, Direct Relief is coordinating with HOPE Hospital Foundation for Women and Children in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The group has conducted extensive disaster response training for medical staff and is ready to respond if needed. Direct Relief has supported the organization with medical and financial support as they’ve expanded services to care for Rohingya refugees living in the area.

The post Millions Evacuate as Deadly Cyclone Fani Lashes India, Churns Towards Bangladesh appeared first on Direct Relief.

Cyclone Fani is churning through the Bay of Bengal and meteorologists predict the storm will make landfall on India’s eastern coastline with winds of up to 124 miles per hour, speeds equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane. Heavy rainfall is also expected in the states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, and a storm surge of at least five feet is expected in low-lying areas. Several hundred shelters have been opened in the country to accommodate evacuees.

More than 100 million people are in the storm’s path, and the cyclone is expected to be the strongest to hit India in two decades.

Direct Relief has staff members in country working on response activities, and is also in communication with local health organizations as they prepare for the storm’s impacts. Direct Relief is ready to respond with support, if requested.

HOPE Foundation Hospital for Women and Children of Bangladesh was one of the group’s readying for Fani’s impacts. The storm could send large amounts of rain into Cox’s Bazar, where the hospital serves Rohingya refugees residing in the flood-prone area.

Dr. Iftikher Mahmood, founder of HOPE Foundation, said Tuesday that the HOPE Emergency Response Team had been activated and was ready to provide care if needed.

In addition to ongoing medical aid support, Direct Relief has shipped Emergency Medical Backpacks to hospital staff so they’re equipped to provide care outside of hospital walls, if needed. The packs contain supplies and equipment to meet a variety of prevalent disaster-related medical issues, including infection control, diagnostics, trauma care, and personal protection tools.

Emergency first responder training was also held last year, spearheaded by Dr. Neena Jain, who worked with HOPE Hospital staff on their disaster response plan, including scenarios of triage care. The hospital has also conducted more emergency response training since and has an emergency response team ready to deploy in case of emergency.

Direct Relief will continue to monitor Cyclone Fani as it approaches the coast and respond as needed as the situation evolves.

The post India, Bangladesh Facing Strongest Cyclone in Decades appeared first on Direct Relief.

Just six weeks after Cyclone Idai devastated the country and sparked a cholera outbreak that has so far resulted in over 6,300 cases and 8 deaths – despite a successful mass vaccination campaign that reached 900,000 people in four districts – Cyclone Kenneth threatens a repeat of those events in an area that, in many ways, is just as large, complex and vulnerable to disaster.

Cholera has not yet emerged as an active threat in the area likely to be most affected by Cyclone Kenneth. However, particularly in the wake of recent events in Beira after Cyclone Idai, it is clearly a risk. Flood waters and high winds lead to the loss of homes, displacement of population, damaged health infrastructure and, perhaps most seriously from the standpoint of waterborne diseases, damaged sanitation systems which can quickly spread the bacteria which cause cholera.

Can we already know enough precisely about the factors which may lead to cholera outbreaks, including the combination of those factors which may specifically exist in northern Mozambique, in order to focus attention, prioritize key geographic areas and possibly begin planning now for the scale, form and location of health emergency response which may be required?

Modeling Cholera Risk for the Aftermath of Cyclone Kenneth

To help identify the areas in Mozambique at greatest risk from the storm and its aftermath, a team of researchers led by Dr. Caroline Buckee, Dr. Ayesha Mahmud and Rebecca Kahn from Harvard University School of Public Health, in collaboration with Direct Relief, Nethope Crisis Informatics, Facebook Data for Good and Jen Chan from Northwestern University School of Medicine, developed an initial model-based estimation of likely cholera in the region.^1,2

The model highlights several key areas primarily in the Cabo Delgado province, as well as areas of Tete, Zambezia and Sofala provinces, at the highest risk for potential cholera outbreaks following Cyclone Kenneth. Collectively, the five districts considered by the results of this model to be most at risk represent a population of nearly 1.2 million people.

Key factors included in this spatial disease-risk model include the previous cholera incidence for this area, estimated severity of flood impacts, and the likelihood of increased cholera incidence during El Nino years. Previous cholera incidence was based on modeled estimates derived from cholera outbreak data and ecological data from Lessler et al. on cholera hotspot detection for Africa, published in The Lancet in 2018.³ Flooding impact estimates were based on the most recent weather information available, with the highest severity in the northernmost districts. Sensitivity to the effects of El Nino was based on work from Moore et al published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2017.⁴

Details of the Cholera Risk Model

Risk scores for each variable were scaled between 0 and 1, and maps were produced which show both the averaged effect for all variables and the individual impact of each variable in isolation. For Cyclone Kenneth, the projected overall cholera risk is an average of the flooding index, El Niño sensitivity index and previous cholera incidence.

Additional model outputs have also been produced for the Beira area in central Mozambique which is the location of the current cholera outbreak. In addition to the factors which have been identified for the Cyclone Kenneth area, the Beira model includes a “gravity model” which estimates the likelihood of population movement from the area where most infected individuals are located out to areas where those individuals may travel. The gravity (diffusion) model assumes that travel from Beira occurs based on the population size of Beira, the population size of the receiving district and the geodesic distance between Beira and the receiving district according to the formula:

The goal of this additional model output for Beira is to determine the likelihood that despite what appears to be the containment of the current outbreak, the disease may move along with travelers who leave that region and arrive elsewhere in the country. The “gravity model” simulates human movement, in the absence of detailed mobility data, and has been used previously in epidemiological models (for example, in Xia et al in the American Naturalist in 2004).⁵ High resolution population data was deployed from Facebook.⁶

Focusing Attention and Planning on Emerging Health Risks

As additional flooding and cholera case data becomes available, in the event of actual cholera outbreaks, these models can and will be updated to reflect changing predictions based on new information and new circumstances.

Direct Relief, Nethope and colleague organizations involved in health emergency response activities in Mozambique and other potentially affected countries will be continuing to pay close attention to any signs that communities may be seeing outbreaks of cholera in the days and weeks to come, as southern Africa copes with what is already the most serious sequence of storm-based disaster impacts for this region in recorded history. The modeling work performed by our colleagues at Harvard is an extraordinarily valuable guide to the risks which may still lie in the future. Additional modeling analysis is also in the works for areas of southern Malawi which have already been affected by Cyclone Idai and which lie in the inland path of Cyclone Kenneth.

The data, code and methodology which drives these models will be posted in the coming days to GitHub so that other researchers and interested parties may use these models, reproduce their results, and help us to improve our collective focus on and response to the enormous set of health risks faced by communities in Mozambique and elsewhere.

External Resources:

1. The R-Shiny web application containing output of the cholera risk model
2. Cyclone Kenneth Cholera Modeled Maps
3. Lessler et al, “Mapping the Burden of Cholera in Sub-Saharan Africa and Implications for Control: An Analysis of Data Across Geographic Scales,” The Lancet, vol. 31, issue 10133, May 12, 2018
4. Moore et al, “El Nino and the Shifting Geography of Cholera in Africa,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114 (17) 4436-4441, April 10, 2017
5. Xia et al, “Measles Metapopulation Dynamics: A Gravity Model for Epidemiological Coupling and Dynamics,” The American Naturalist, vol. 164, no. 2, August 2004
6. High-resolution population data set from Facebook
7. GitHub Repository: Cholera and Mozambique

The post If Cyclone Kenneth Leads to Cholera in Mozambique, Who Is Most at Risk? appeared first on Direct Relief.

At least 800 people died in Mozambique and neighboring countries as a result of the Cyclone Idai and the floods that followed.

This week, winds from Cyclone Kenneth escalated to those equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane, weakening before coming ashore, but are still the strongest recorded to date in Mozambique. The storm formed in the Indian Ocean earlier this week, and three people were killed from storm impacts on the islands of Comoros as the cyclone swept through.

The storm system is expected to bring torrential rains throughout the rest of the week, and the northern city of Pemba is expected to get more than three feet of rain, more than the area typically sees in a year.

Local groups, like Health Alliance International, a nonprofit working to strengthen health systems in the region, were watching the cyclone’s impacts with a wary eye.

“The idea that Mozambique’s already under-resourced health, education, and public works systems might be further burdened by the impact of a second cyclone so soon after Idai, highlights the importance of reinforcing the resilience of these critical public institutions, before and long after any storm is on its way,” said Health Alliance International’s Adam Granato.

Kenneth made landfall north of Cyclone Idai’s path through Beira, in the central part of Mozambique.

“The distance from Beira is significant, so there are no formal storm preparations currently happening in Sofala or Manica Provinces. But HAI along with the international response community in Beira is watching the storm closely, and we highly encourage any responders to coordinate closely with Cabo Delgado’s Provincial Health Service, who will be around long after the cyclone hits,” according to Tracy Woodman, Health Alliance International’s Deputy Director.

A 20-pallet shipment of medical aid is en route to Maputo, Mozambique, to support the work of Health Alliance International.

Contained in the shipment are more than 1 million defined daily doses of antibiotics, as well as essential medicines to manage chronic conditions like diabetes. Also included are oral rehydration salts, which will be used to help rehydrate people recovering from diseases like cholera.

The disease is endemic to the region and more than 6,300 cases have been reported and eight deaths have occurred in Mozambique, according to the World Health Organization.

The post Cyclone Kenneth Sweeps Through Mozambique appeared first on Direct Relief.

Tropical Storm Kenneth is projected to come ashore near the Tanzania-Mozambique border on Thursday, bringing heavy rains and flash flooding.

Earlier this year, Mozambique was battered by Cyclone Idai, which inundated the country, forcing more than 77,000 people into shelters. At least 800 people were killed in Mozambique and neighboring countries as a result of the storm and the floods that followed.

Rains from Tropical Storm Kenneth are expected to begin Tuesday night, and though the storm may weaken as it moves over land, it could still set off mudslides and flooding.

Direct Relief continues to respond to Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, and is preparing a 20-pallet shipment for departure from the organization’s headquarters this week.

The shipment contains approximately $3.4 million in medical aid, which will support the work of Health Alliance International, a local nonprofit working to strengthen health systems in the region.

Included in the shipment are more than 1 million defined daily doses of antibiotics, as well as essential medicines to manage chronic conditions like diabetes. Also included are oral rehydration salts, which will be used to help rehydrate people recovering from diseases like cholera.

Since Cyclone Idai made landfall, health officials have been working to stem the spread of cholera, which is endemic to the region. More than 6,300 cases have been reported and eight deaths have occurred in Mozambique, according to the World Health Organization.

The latest shipment follows prior dispatches of medical aid to Mozambique and Malawi, which contained more than 200,000 defined daily doses of requested antibiotics, analgesics, oral rehydration solution, deworming medicines, and emergency medical supplies such as protective gear and soap to help curb the spread of cholera.

Several companies have stepped up to bolster Cyclone Idai response with financial support and medical products, including 3M, Abbott, AbbVie, Apotex, BMS, FedEx, P&G, Pfizer, LiquidIV, Merck, Sandoz, and Teva.

Direct Relief will continue to coordinate with local healthcare providers throughout the week and respond to the impacts of Tropical Storm Kenneth as needed.

The post Weeks After Cyclone Idai, Mozambique Braces for Second Impact with Tropical Storm Kenneth appeared first on Direct Relief.

Over 1,200 miles of Mozambique’s midsection, including some of the country’s most fertile agricultural lands, were inundated with salty flood waters just prior to harvest. Conditions now exist for one of the world’s worst food security crises.

Hundreds of people, and potentially many more, were killed in the initial impact. Tens of thousands were displaced from their homes. Thousands more structures were badly damaged or destroyed including at least 57 critical health facilities. Roads, bridges and other logistical routes were cut off for many days, severely hampering the search and rescue and relief efforts.

Long term risks from cholera, malaria and measles to safe delivery for pregnant mothers continue to rise throughout an enormous area including not only Mozambique but parts of neighboring Zimbabwe and Malawi as well.

By some estimates, at least $1 billion in property damage has been inflicted upon these three countries. Each is more poorly placed than most countries to bear the burden of sudden shocks from natural disasters, particularly tropical cyclones. In terms of financial and human costs the 2018-19 cyclone season is now the worst ever recorded for the southern Indian Ocean region.

Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change in the Southern Indian Ocean

There is little doubt about the scale of impact from Cyclone Idai. But what made this cyclone so powerful, high-impact, and in many ways unusual, relative to most of the recorded past of the southern African continent?

Southern Africa is not subject traditionally to significant cyclone events. Prior to 1994, Category 5 storm events were entirely unknown in this region, according to research published in the Southern African Journal of Science. This relative paucity of strong storm events stands in stark contrast to the northern Indian Ocean and particularly the northeastern Bay of Bengal which is one of the most active storm zones on the planet.

Unlike these more northern waters the southern Indian Ocean is a vast expanse of open water, containing far more water volume, requiring significantly more energy to heat up. This area lies closer in proximity to the Antarctic ice shelves which cool the ocean temperatures and temper the likelihood of storm occurrence. The presence of the enormous Madagascar land mass further diminishes wind shear and makes massive storm formation in the area where Idai struck even less probable.

Nevertheless, research published in the journal of the American Meteorological Society strongly indicates the presence of an unusual and accelerating warming trend throughout the western Indian Ocean over the past century. In “The Curious Case of Indian Ocean Warming,” Mathew Roxy and other authors argue that the likelihood of sea-surface temperatures at or above 28 Celsius, where storm events tend to increase in frequency and strength, has increased steadily along the entire African coastline for a complex combination of reasons. The increase in sea surface temperatures is correlated with increase since the early 1990s in the number and severity of southern African cyclones.

Cyclone Idai made landfall as a Category 3 storm, which would have been serious under any scenario. What made this storm so catastrophic was the extremely high atmospheric moisture content leading to heavy rains, on top of an immediately prior storm which had already caused flooding throughout the Zambezi River basin.

Echoing many of the reasons for Hurricane Harvey’s devastation of eastern Texas in 2017, the issue with Cyclone Idai was less the presence of high winds than the sheer amount of water pushed into the area through overlapping storm systems and coastal surge over an area of low-lying topography. This is the reason for describing the post-storm landscape as a kind of “inland ocean.”

Many climate models indicate that the combination of factors making tropical cyclones more likely in the southwestern Indian Ocean which saw very few such events in the past will tend to increase over time. This means that countries like Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa are looking at a future under climate change where even within global mean temperature increases in the 1.5C range, well below what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends as a “safe” limit for climate change mitigation, Cyclone Idai level events must be factored regularly into the risk horizon.

How Prepared is Southern Africa for Increasing Natural Disasters?

Disaster preparedness always involves some degree of transference of present resources to reduce the risk from events that have not yet happened, in the future. To prepare for an event which hasn’t happened yet means spending scarce resources now to avert future impacts that would conceivably be far worse without the present investment in preparedness.

This is one of the key reasons why disaster preparedness is such a wrenching debate in the poorer areas of the world, like southern Africa. Countries like Mozambique and Malawi must make tough choices in terms of development priorities, with current public budgets already under “normal” scenarios being insufficient to provide adequately for necessities like full-scale vaccination, affordable housing, strong public health systems, universal access to clean water and effective sanitation. The more serious the future risk horizon looks then the more challenging these present allocation problems will appear to be.

To some degree, smart public investments can double as disaster preparedness. Basic primary health care is a good example. During the response to Cyclone Idai, public health care workers have played key roles, with local clinicians essentially being drafted dynamically into the role of “first responders.”

Likewise, the more the primary health system under non-disaster conditions can reduce exposure to health risks such as safe delivery and reduction of childhood diarrheal illness the more resilient those populations will tend to be in times of crisis. Investing in basic primary care is therefore not only smart on its own terms, it’s also a good argument for effective disaster preparedness.

Not every investment choice is the same as primary care though in terms of its dual impacts. Countries throughout southern Africa also need to build up the specialized emergency management capacities required to respond effectively to events like Cyclone Idai, regardless of how frequently those capacities may be utilized in any given year. Mozambique’s emergency management agency, INGC, has been a leader in the field, as it looks to strengthen core operational capabilities and add innovations like drone mapping which proved essential in the recent flood response by enabling rapid assessment and targeting of affected areas. Even INGC though is under-resourced compared with wealthier countries, and still has a long way to go to meet basic standards of disaster readiness. Neighboring countries are struggling perhaps even more seriously than Mozambique.

The Imperative to Build Southern African Disaster Resilience

Six days following Cyclone Idai, the government of Zimbabwe announced that it had gotten the message loud and clear and would be creating for the first time a national emergency operations center in Harare. Local Government Minister July Moyo is urging rapid innovation in disaster management for Zimbabwe. “We want to set a permanent disaster management center so that we have all the information systems including the technology that other countries are now using, to predict or retrieve information when a disaster occurs,” Moyo said.

Elsewhere local, national and international groups are urging investments in early warning systems, improved training and technologies for better coordination. Broad popular education in how to react to emergency events is critical, much like public health education campaigns have helped to increase basic preparations like hand washing and vaccination. Each of these elements is crucial and should be thought of in concert as a package of interventions to boost social readiness.

International organizations can play key support roles as well, as the current cyclone response displays in abundance. Yet it’s clear that priorities in emergency resilience need to be driving from the local and national level for greatest effectiveness. Organizations like Direct Relief seek to bolster those local capacities as they develop but ultimately cannot and should not substitute for developing locally-driven resilience efforts.

As we look towards a shared future in southern Africa where events like Cyclone Idai become more likely, it’s incumbent upon us in the international community, just as for national governments, to boost key investments and innovations that will make countries like Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi more resistant to the worst impacts of disasters. Even so, the immediate health and development priorities which countries must deal with on a daily basis also need to be understood in part as a way to reduce the costs of trade-offs between present needs and future risks.

Direct Relief is working with local partners to help make sure not only that current needs are met in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai, but also that we aid with rebuilding in a way that ushers in more disaster-prepared systems for the next storms.

The post Rethinking Disaster Preparedness in Southern Africa After Cyclone Idai appeared first on Direct Relief.

Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and other states could see prolonged snowfall, and the broader region still has substantial flood damage from earlier this year, when rivers crested in multiple states.

“This is shaping up to be a potentially unprecedented flood season, with more than 200 million people at risk for flooding in their communities,” said Ed Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center, in a statement last month.

The organization stated that almost two-thirds of the the Lower 48 states face an elevated risk for flooding through May, with the potential for major or moderate flooding in 25 states.

Direct Relief has been working with health facilities impacted by the flooding across the Midwest, including the Good Neighbor Community Health Center, based in Columbus, Nebraska, which also operates a site in Fremont, which was badly impacted by flooding.

Direct Relief is in communication with healthcare facilities that may be impacted by further flooding, including in Missouri, and is ready to to provide assistance if requested.

The post With Blizzard on the Way, Midwest Braces for More Flooding appeared first on Direct Relief.

Despite the heavy losses sustained in the storm and its aftermath, the risks are still rising.

A Second Crisis

Communities in the storm-affected area were already burdened by many of the planet’s most pressing problems, from chronic and infectious disease to high rates of maternal mortality. People in the storm’s path must now shoulder those burdens under even harsher conditions – with transportation and communications disrupted, agricultural fields saturated with salt water, homes damaged, and livelihoods wiped out.

While floodwaters have since receded from their “inland ocean” depths – allowing assistance to reach communities that had been cut off for days and even weeks – the region faces another crisis: more than 2,000 cases of cholera have been reported.

Cholera is a highly-contagious waterborne disease that can kill a person within hours. Due to its short incubation period, the bacteria can transmit rapidly in explosive outbreak patterns. However, with swift medical care and the right supplies, 80 percent of cases can be successfully cured.

The Response

Direct Relief’s response, consistent with longstanding practice, involves working with and through its existing local partner network. As in any such unfolding, very dynamic emergency with multiple actors working fast, the risk of duplicating efforts is high.

Direct Relief is taking care to avoid such duplication with broad coordination, information sharing, participation in coordinating calls with UN agencies working at the government’s request and connecting directly with health facilities through its local partner network.

Moreover, Direct Relief’s response is based on specifically requested needs identified by responsible authorities that are vetted and checked with national agencies and international groups.

To date, Direct Relief’s response includes:

• Committing $500,000 to the response, with support from 3M, Abbott, AbbVie, Apotex, BMS, FedEx, P&G, LiquidIV, Merck, Sandoz, Teva, and other companies that stepped up to address the crisis with contributions of medical products and financial contributions. These funds have been allocated to purchase and transport requested medications. Direct Relief is also issuing emergency operating grants to local organizations such as Health Alliance International, helping them expand and sustain emergency operations, support their communities and help repair critical infrastructure.
• Coordinating with local organizations in Malawi (Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Society of Medical Doctors), Mozambique (The Chissano Foundation, Health Alliance International), and Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe Diabetes Association, Zimbabwe Confederation of Midwives) to identify and respond to the specific needs of healthcare providers serving affected communities.
• Equipping public health facilities and local organizations in Mozambique with multiple shipments containing more than 200,000 defined daily doses of requested antibiotics, analgesics, oral rehydration solution, deworming medicines, and emergency medical supplies such as protective gear and soap to help curb the spread of cholera. Critically needed medical items are being distributed by helicopter to heavily impacted districts.
• Deploying emergency medical and Cholera Treatment Kits to cyclone-affected areas. Direct Relief designed the kit with enough medicine and medical supplies to treat 100 cholera patients. Since 2016, Direct Relief has deployed Cholera Treatment Kits to combat outbreaks in countries including Haiti, Bangladesh, Yemen, South Sudan, Somaliland.
• Supplying physician teams with specially designed medical packs that contain supplies and equipment to meet a variety of prevalent disaster-related medical issues, including infection control, diagnostics, and trauma care.

Direct Relief will continue responding to specific requests as the region recovers.

The post With Cholera, Cyclone Idai Deals Another Blow appeared first on Direct Relief.

On Monday, the latest shipment of essential emergency medicines arrived in Mozambique, and includes more than 200,000 defined daily doses of antibiotics, analgesics, oral rehydration solution, deworming medicines, and other supplies. The shipment will be delivered this week to Beira, which was badly impacted by the storm, and the supplies will equip public health facilities in the area.

Direct Relief also committed $250,000 to response efforts surrounding Cyclone Idai, and will procure additional medicine based on specific requests from key health facilities in affected areas.  

Direct Relief emergency response staff have now conducted field assessments in Beira, Mozambique, and the team is working with local health authorities, local NGO partners, including Health Alliance International, and other organizations to get critically needed medicines and cholera relief supplies to health groups and hospitals in the affected areas.

Direct Relief is also dispatching emergency medicine and medical supplies to partners in Malawi and Zimbabwe.

When the cyclone made landfall on March, 14, it brought torrential rainfall on an already flooded region. The flood waters created a virtual inland sea in the interior of Mozambique, which left hundreds of thousands cut-off and stranded by flood waters, damaged roads and bridges. The death toll is over 700 across the region and it is predicted that it may ultimately reach 1,000 in Mozambique alone.

Roads are slowly being reopened, which means displaced and stranded communities are gradually being reached, however, at the same time, outbreaks of diarrheal disease are being reported in multiple sites and a cholera outbreak has now been declared.

Government authorities, UN agencies, and international non-profit organizations are racing to assess needs and distribute aid. These needs remain very high with hundreds of thousands needing sustained access to clean water, food, shelter, and health services.

In addition to medical shipments, Direct Relief has also transported 150 kits containing hygiene items, which are being handed over to the Ministry of Health in Maputo for distribution to affected communities.

Meanwhile, in Malawi, a shipment of emergency medical packs, ORS and antibiotics has been dispatched to local organizations responding to Cyclone Idai-related flooding.

Direct Relief staff are continuing to directly coordinate with international, national and local authorities and organizations in Mozambique, including the Chissano Foundation and former President Chissano.

The post Needed Medications Arrive in Mozambique appeared first on Direct Relief.

A weather system linked to the cyclone that swept through the region led to intense flooding across 14 districts in southern and central Malawi earlier this month, leaving up to 125,000 people displaced and nearly 1 million affected. Most of those displaced are living in camps or makeshift sites in schools and churches, and the Malawian government has been mobilizing resources to help with emergency response.

On Tuesday, a shipment of requested medical aid, including Emergency Medical Packs, filled with essential medicines and supplies, oral rehydration salts and antibiotics, left Direct Relief’s warehouse bound for Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi.

The shipment will equip a group of volunteer physicians from the Society of Medical Doctors, an association of health providers from across Malawi. The group will be treating displaced people living in camps in flood-affected areas.

Direct Relief staff in Mozambique are working with government officials and first responders to help coordinate ongoing shipments of medical aid to the broader region, including to the city of Beira, where more than 80 percent of infrastructure has been destroyed.

As health concerns mount, including from threats of cholera and mosquito-borne disease, Direct Relief will continue responding to requests for medical resource assistance.

The post Medical Aid Departs for Malawi in Wake of Cyclone Idai appeared first on Direct Relief.

The land around Beira was already saturated with flood waters when Idai arrived. With the additional heavy rains from the storm, as well as storm surge cresting as high as 7.5 feet, Cyclone Idai produced an “inland ocean” which stretched for thousands of square miles, soaking the homes, roads and belongings of some of the world’s most impoverished communities.

The official death toll from the initial impact is already in the hundreds, with search and rescue operations ongoing. Many more than that total may ultimately lose their lives.

Despite the heavy losses of the storm’s landfall, the highest risks for people living in Mozambique and neighboring Zimbabwe still lie in the future.

Communities in the storm-affected area face many of the planet’s most pressing health crises. Now they must do so under conditions where transportation and communications networks have been disrupted, agricultural fields have been inundated with salt water, homes have been lost, and food is scarce.

Mozambique’s health care system was already fragile. Now, in many places, it has been rendered non-functional. In Sofala province, 28 out of 157 health facilities have been either entirely or partially destroyed.

Waterborne Diseases

The muddy storm waters of Cyclone Idai contain multiple risks to human health. Cholera is foremost among these. The area from Quelimane to Beira and inland across the border into Zimbabwe includes numerous areas which are considered under standard conditions to be high risk for cholera infections. Central Mozambique saw outbreaks of the disease in 2015 and again in 2017.

Cholera is caused by the infection of water supplies with sewage which may contain the vibrio cholerae bacteria. Flooding from Cyclone Idai has severely affected sanitation throughout the region.

Areas which have seen cholera infections in the recent past may see a rapid resurgence of the bacteria. According to reports from IFRC, the first cases in the inundated area have already been detected.

Along with cholera, risks of waterborne illness include bacterial infections causing acute watery diarrhea, and typhoid, both of which are endemic throughout the storm-affected zone.

HIV and TB

Mozambique suffers from one of the most severe HIV burdens of any country. Current estimates place their HIV prevalence rate at 12.5% of the population. HIV, although it is transmitted by viral infection, is now considered largely to be a chronic illness given access to anti-retroviral drugs which can control the severity of the disease and bring patients’ viral loads into manageable ranges.

However, under conditions where drug supplies may be disrupted as a result of natural disaster patients may not be able to access health facilities nor receive access to HIV medications. As a result, many patients are at serious risk of experiencing complications from the disease.

Likewise, Mozambique has among the highest burdens of TB, at 552 cases per 100,000 population. Much like HIV, tuberculosis can be controlled through the administration of antibiotics and other medicines, but often requires direct observation of the patient over regular periods.

Disruption of health systems is an exceptional problem for patients who may have active tuberculosis. Likewise, the conditions of the disaster produce the increased probability that people with TB may come into contact with others and risk the spread of the disease.

Malaria and Dengue

Cyclone-strength storm winds tend to disrupt insect populations and may have an initial effect of reducing exposure to vector-borne diseases. However, central Mozambique has high burdens of malaria, dengue, chikungunya and other infections which are transmitted by mosquitos. Mozambique has the 10th highest malaria rate in the world at 337 cases per 100,000 population.

As the storm waters recede and mosquito breeding grounds re-establish themselves, it is likely that people throughout this area may see spikes in vector-borne diseases. For those currently being treated for malaria and other illnesses, the disruption of access to medicines may make their conditions more severe than otherwise would be the case.

Maternal and Child Health

Pregnant women in Mozambique are among the most at-risk under normal circumstances. The country’s maternal mortality rate is 489 per 100,000 deliveries, which is the world’s 21st highest. Among the leading causes of risk for safe deliveries is the lack of access to a skilled birth attendant, usually at a health facility.

Given the scale of impact to the health infrastructure of this area women will experience reduced access and therefore higher rates of risk that complicated pregnancies may result in severe injury or death.

Obstetric fistula as a result of prolonged obstructed labor is among the most common birth injuries suffered by women in Mozambique. According to the “Find a Fistula Repair Center” Application, some of the busiest providers of obstetric fistula care for the country are in Beira and Quelimane, where between 100 and 150 fistula repair surgeries are provided annually.

As is often the case in crises, children under the age of five face some of the most severe health risks, including respiratory illnesses, diarrheal disease and other infectious diseases including cholera, malaria and measles. Mozambique’s child mortality rate is among the world’s highest at 72.4 per 1000.

Food Security and Nutrition

Access to food ranks among the most urgent post-disaster issues for people affected by the storm. Major shortages are being reported throughout Sofala and Zambezia as transportation logistics have been cut off and communities struggle to meet their basic nutritional requirements.

Food security is, however, perhaps even more serious as a concern over the medium to long term. The midsection of Mozambique is a significant agricultural production region. Most families make their livelihoods here as smallholder farmers.

The wind-speed of the cyclone badly damaged tens of thousands of acres of staple crops. Even worse, the surge of salt water into key production regions may take those areas offline in terms of viable agricultural production for the remainder of this year until the fertility of the soil can be restored.

Long-term disruption of food security has implications not only for the communities directly affected by the storm but potentially for the entire country which will have to figure out how to replace what has been lost.

Direct Relief is stepping up medical aid shipments throughout the affected area and will be closely tracking health risks to the people of Mozambique as they continue to change throughout what promises to be a long and challenging recovery effort.

The post Health Risks Rise in the Wake of Cyclone Idai appeared first on Direct Relief.

It is a race against time to rescue as many people as possible, many of whom are still clinging to roofs and trees after six days, while also delivering food, water, and health services to potentially hundreds of thousands of people who are now displaced.

Aerial assessments so far indicate that thousands are cut off by deep floodwaters that have turned the interior of Mozambique into a virtual inland sea. The cyclone destroyed roads and bridges, disabled communications, and cut power.

Fuel supplies are dwindling, clean water and food are scarce, and several health facilities are reportedly damaged or destroyed. Winds from Cyclone Idai ripped the roof off the main hospital in Beira. While the facility is partially functioning, the emergency department is non-operational and running low on medicines and supplies.

Significant logistical constraints posed by damaged infrastructure and deep floodwaters mean that many areas are only accessible by helicopter.

The World Food Programme described the situation as “a major humanitarian emergency that is getting bigger by the hour.”

While the main focus of the response right now is on search and rescue, the spread of disease is a major concern. Extensive flooding combined with a lack of sanitation and contaminated drinking water severely increases the risk of a secondary crisis caused by outbreaks of diarrheal and vector-borne diseases, as well as a host of other primary and chronic health issues that may become critical without access to medicine and health care.

In the medium to longer-term, damage to agricultural lands, crops, and livelihoods from Mozambique to Malawi will likely have a severe impact on the region.

Direct Relief is preparing an emergency shipment of emergency medicine, medical supplies and hygiene items to Zambezia Provincial Health Department to support their response.

Direct Relief is also coordinating with other groups on the ground and making available emergency medicines and medical supplies to local healthcare providers and authorities.

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Given that residents of this area are among the poorest in the world, with significant health challenges under ordinary circumstances with HIV, malaria and other vector-borne diseases, respiratory and diarrheal illnesses, as well as persistent challenges with maternal and child health care, the risks to the health of the population over the coming weeks are very high.

According to news reports and situational updates from the few humanitarian agencies that have been able to reach Sofala district and the coastal city of Beira, which took the immediate force of the storm, the area has been transformed into an “inland ocean.” Flooding across Beira, home to over 500,000 people, appears to be not only widespread but very deep, approaching the roof lines or entirely submerging thousands of structures.

Damage outside the city may be considerably higher but assessments in the more rural areas will take significant time to complete. The primary road into Beira is considered impassable and aid is reported being delivered by helicopter.

Power and communications have been cut almost entirely for the nearly 20 districts surrounding Beira. Small pockets of cellular coverage remain available far inland near the cities of Chimoia and Mutare on the border with Zimbabwe, but even these areas remain tenuous and oversubscribed over the course of the day.

Direct Relief is coordinating with local partners in Mozambique including the Real Medicines Foundation and the provincial Ministry of Health for Zambezia to move emergency medical supplies into the affected area.

The post Cyclone Idai Inundates Mozambique, Leaves Devastating Wake appeared first on Direct Relief.

At least four people have died as a result of the flooding activity in Nebraska and Iowa.

A “bomb cyclone” that brought heavy rain throughout the Plains region and Upper Midwest last week is contributing to the flooding, and melting snow and ice in the region are also adding  to the rising waters.

Direct Relief is in communication with partner healthcare facilities throughout Nebraska, including facilities in Columbus, Hastings, Kearney, Lincoln and Omaha, among others, and is ready to assist if requested.

Evacuation warnings remain in place for nearly a dozen counties in Nebraska, where shelters have been activated.

Direct Relief’s medical inventory includes Emergency Health Kits, designed to rapidly deploy and equip health providers during times of disaster and mass evacuation, including shelter situations. The organization is also ready to assist with any health-related issues evacuees seeking care at local health centers may be experiencing.

Rapid evacuations often result in essential medicines being left behind. Lack of medication needed to manage chronic conditions, like diabetes or asthma, can send a person into medical crisis, potentially requiring emergency care.

Direct Relief will continue monitoring the situation and is ready to respond.

The post Emergency Declarations Issued Across Midwest as Floodwaters Rise appeared first on Direct Relief.

Measles is one of the most contagious viral diseases known, and can result in serious complications, such as pneumonia, encephalitis, and blindness. In severe cases, it can also be fatal, particularly in young children.

Since October, the disease has already claimed the lives of 1,141 individuals, and 70 percent of the deaths are of children, 14 and under. Madagascar’s Ministry of Public Health and its civil society partners have launched an aggressive vaccination campaign across the country in hopes of slowing the spread of the disease.

This is an alarming situation,” said Dr. Ali Ouenzar, National Director of PIVOT, a prominent health sector NGO and Direct Relief partner on the front lines of the epidemic. Preventive measures must be accelerated to prevent the spread of the disease, he said. The group just completed a vaccination campaign effort that reached 65,000 children, ages 6 months to 9 years, in the district of Ifanadiana.

The weather may complicate continued vaccination efforts this week, as a hurricane-force storm system from Cyclone Idai is expected to bringing flooding and high winds to many places in Madagascar already suffering from the measles outbreak.

While progress on measles vaccination has been made, funding gaps remain a serious concern for the campaign effort — as does the lack of adequate medicine and supplies for healthcare facilities to properly treat the rising number of cases.

Resurgence of Measles as a Global Threat

Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths globally each year.  Through an extended global vaccination effort since the introduction of the vaccine, the number of cases of measles, and therefore deaths due to complications from measles, has drastically declined over the last half-century.

However, the reality is that measles remains a deadly threat.

WHO reports that 110,000 deaths occurred due to measles infection in 2017. Measles infections in 2018 have doubled globally since 2017, with extended outbreaks occurring across regions and in countries that had previously achieved measles elimination. Those numbers are difficult to come to terms with given that the disease is 100 percent preventable and had been eliminated until recently from many parts of the world.

Patterns of immunization coverage may be one reason for the recent spike in cases and deaths. Madagascar’s health sector, like many of the poorest countries, has struggled in recent years to meet widely accepted vaccination targets. Estimated measles immunization coverage in Madagascar prior to the outbreak was only at 58 percent, far below the 95 percent needed to protect against an epidemic.

Further complicating the outbreak in Madagascar, the country has the highest proportion of malnutrition among children under the age of five in the African region, leaving roughly half of the country’s children especially vulnerable to the disease.

Supporting Local Partners on the Front Lines of the Outbreak

In response to an urgent request from PIVOT Works and the Ministry of Public Health of Madagascar, Direct Relief is equipping health centers and hospitals in the region of Vatovavy-Fitovinany with essential medicines and supplies needed to treat both pediatric and adult measles cases. Included in this request is Vitamin A, which studies have shown to reduce morbidity and mortality in measles, and is a recommended treatment for all children with severe measles, whether or not they are thought to have a nutritional deficiency.

Direct Relief has been supporting maternal and child health in Madagascar since 2013 through the United Nations Population Fund, Freedom from Fistula Foundation, and the Sarobidy Maternity Center.

In 2017, the country experienced an alarming pneumonic plague epidemic, which Direct Relief responded to by providing the Ministry of Public Health with personal protective equipment and medicine supplies to support plague treatment centers and maternity centers.

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#Mozambique‘s Beira takes a direct hit from cyclone #Idai https://t.co/okpDyRWA2y

— Direct Relief (@DirectRelief) March 15, 2019

An estimated 500,000 people weathered the cyclone in total darkness as the eye passed directly over the Mozambique City of Beira, bringing sustained winds of 109 mph and wind gusts up to 132 mph, according to the national weather service of Mozambique.

Damage assessments are just beginning, and parts of Zambezia and Sofala provinces had already been inundated with flooding when the cyclone made landfall. It is likely the vast areas of flood water are isolating many communities, which may severely hamper relief efforts over the next week.

Direct Relief is communicating with local partners, including the Real Medicine Foundation, which has a long-running mobile medical outreach program in partnership with the Zambezia Ministry of Health. Direct Relief has offered medical support to the Zambezia Ministry of Health via its local partner and they will also be reaching out to health authorities in Sofala province.

The post Emergency Update: Tropical Cyclone Idai Makes Landfall in Mozambique appeared first on Direct Relief.

One of the key unknowns is how people are likely to behave in the face of disaster. How are communities throughout this area responding to this severe threat to their lives and homes? Are they able to move out of harm’s way? And is there any evidence of them already doing so?

Facebook disaster maps allows a certain kind of window into these questions. Through aggregated and anonymized data on the locations of Facebook users over 8-hour time intervals during crisis, Direct Relief and others can look at how at least a subset of crisis affected populations may behave in near-real-time. Given Facebook’s exceptionally large global user base, even relatively poor areas like coastal Mozambique display some signal of movement during crisis events.

In the case of Cyclone Idai, density maps can show the percentage change in population, measuring how a certain fraction of the population is moving. On March 12 at 7 p.m., the well-traveled route between the cities of Beira and Mutare display an expected high-density pattern, with high percentage change as compared to the baseline measure of three months ago.

On March 13, however, that density pattern shifts dramatically, with the traffic corridor between Beira and Mutare showing much lower density but the areas further towards the outskirts of the wind swathe displaying upward shifts in population density. There is, in other words, some evidence detectable within the Facebook disaster maps data of an evacuation pattern taking place away from Beira towards outlying areas.

In this case certain significant caveats do apply. First, the population sample represented in the Facebook data is somewhat small, containing just shy of 6,000 individuals out of a potential baseline population numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Second, given the poverty and inequality of this area it is probable that the population being measured as Facebook users is more likely to be a more mobile population. Therefore, the population density shifts displayed in these maps should not be understood as necessarily indicative of the population movement patterns of the entire affected area.

Nevertheless, as is so often the case, there is no other meaningful source of information available to humanitarian responders, especially in areas like coastal Mozambique, regarding the movement dynamics of populations during times of crisis. As Direct Relief continues to monitor this situation and reach out to partners across the region for possible emergency health care support, the Facebook disaster maps data is an invaluable guide among other core datasets to how Direct Relief may need to adapt the focus of assistance to meet the needs of the most vulnerable.

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