Confirmation of the disease’s presence in Goma — situated half of a mile from the border of Rwanda — has long been a concern of health authorities. Precautions have been underway, and health workers have been able to vaccinate all known contacts of the Ebola victim, while health facilities are working to protect staff and patients.

To support that effort, Direct Relief has shipped requested medical aid to health facilities in the DRC. Ongoing medical support has also been sent to the neighboring countries of Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan, since the beginning of the outbreak.

This week, a shipment of personal protective gear, including gloves, protective suits and other supplies to protect health workers from the disease, is bound for the Ministry of Health. The supplies were donated by 3M. The shipment is being coordinated with Jericho Road, which operates a health center in Goma.

Upon arrival, the equipment will be dispersed to health facilities in Beni and other cities in the north, where the outbreak is still centered. A portion of the medical aid will also be pre-positioned with facilities in Goma for use, should new cases be reported in the city.

Protecting Local Health Workers

The current outbreak, with more than 2,500 cases recorded, is the world’s second biggest, following the West Africa Ebola outbreak that claimed 11,310 lives between 2014-2016. Civil conflict and attacks on local health workers have compounded the challenge of containing the current outbreak. Ensuring that health workers have proper gear to protect against the disease is crucial.

In August of 2018, just following the announcement of the outbreak, Direct Relief sent an air freight shipment of critical protective equipment to Hope Wellness Clinic and the Ministry of Health in North Kivu, to be transported to Beni. The shipment included protective coveralls, latex gloves, N-95 masks, as well as medicines, and were specifically requested to aid the healthcare response efforts in preventing further spread of the disease.

As the outbreak worsened and concerns of potential spread to Goma were heightened, Direct Relief sent a second shipment of personal protective equipment to Hope Wellness Clinic in January in an effort to further support Ebola preparedness measures being rolled out at the facility.

Following the confirmation of first Ebola case in Goma this week, the country’s Ministry of Health has reached out for additional support from Direct Relief.

In addition to supporting preparedness and response efforts in the DRC, Direct Relief has been in close contact with partners in the bordering countries of South Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda, where national task forces have been established and preparedness efforts have been well underway. Direct Relief has received requests from healthcare facilities and organizations in both South Sudan and Uganda for additional personal protective equipment to bolster their ability to respond.

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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.

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.

The post Aiding the Fight Against Measles in Madagascar appeared first on Direct Relief.

Direct Relief staff in Haiti are in close communication with health providers throughout the country, many of which have had to shelter in place. Some healthcare partners have evacuated their staff via helicopter to the Port-au-Prince airport due to an inability to get past road blockades. While several healthcare facilities report a temporary decrease in patient visits, larger than normal patient numbers are expected once the protests subside.

Just days before last week’s eruption of violence, a Direct Relief shipment of 11 pallets of medicine, valued at $2.2 million, was delivered to the Direct Relief warehouse in Haiti. In-country staff were able to distribute the essential medicines to healthcare facilities in Port-au-Prince, Carrefour, and Fond-des-blanc.

Four pallets of medicine remain at Direct Relief’s warehouse, ready to distribute to in-country partners once the situation improves.

Since the protests, two shipments arrived in Port-au-Prince for St. Damien Pediatric Hospital and St. Luke Family Hospital. The shipments consist of 11 pallets of antibiotics, blood pressure medications, diabetes medications, suture, hospital supplies, and personal care items.

Direct Relief sent an additional air-freight shipment of essential medicine that arrived in Port-au-Prince Monday. This shipment consists of eight pallets of medicine, IV fluids, and vitamins, and will be distributed to five in-country partners and their recipient healthcare facilities across the country.

Two additional drop-shipment purchases of HIV test kits and pregnancy test kits for Project Medishare have been booked for arrival later this month.

Since the first wave of protests erupted in July 2018, Direct Relief has supplied over $10 million in medical resources to health facilities in Haiti.

Direct Relief has a long history of responding to emergencies in the country, including the devastating earthquake in 2010, the cholera outbreak that followed, and Hurricane Matthew, which slammed the southern peninsula in 2016.

Since 2008, Direct Relief has provided nearly $345 million in donations of medicine and supplies to public and private healthcare facilities throughout Haiti for emergency response, maternal and child health, and general health system strengthening efforts.

The post Medical Deliveries to Haiti Continue Amid Civil Unrest appeared first on Direct Relief.

In addition to their accreditation, each graduate was gifted their own set of instruments from Direct Relief Midwife Kits.

Direct Relief’s Midwife Kits are designed for use by trained health professionals and each kit provides essential supplies and medicines for approximately 50 normal births. In 2017, Direct Relief supplied Midwives for Haiti with Midwife Kits to equip their birthing center and six other healthcare facilities across the country that host their students for intensive clinical rotations.

The Midwife Kits ensured that the program’s students, and the healthcare providers they trained under, had the necessary equipment, supplies, and medicine to provide up to 1,650 safe deliveries.

Haiti has the highest rates of maternal mortality in the Western hemisphere. Many factors play into this statistic, but among them are the high rates of poverty, poor health infrastructure and lack of access to healthcare. At least 70 percent of Haitian women still deliver outside of a healthcare facility and without the assistance of a skilled birth attendant, such as a doctor, nurse, or midwife, who can recognize and treat complications that arise.

For those that do deliver under the care of a skilled birth attendant in a hospital or birthing center, much of their care is still dependent on the provider having access to proper supplies, equipment and medicine.

Much is being done around the country to address the various barriers to safe deliveries that Haitian women face.

Groups like Midwives for Haiti are working hard to ensure that the country has a properly trained workforce of skilled birth attendants to oversee deliveries in the healthcare facility setting. Direct Relief is dedicated to equipping these healthcare professionals with the tools necessary for providing the best care for their patients.

Since 2016, Direct Relief has provided nearly 200 midwife kits to hospitals, health centers and birthing centers around the country, equipping providers with the essentials for approximately 10,000 safe deliveries.

The post Diploma in One Hand, Midwife Kit in the Other appeared first on Direct Relief.

When violence broke out in 2013, fighting was initially contained to specific regions. In July of 2016, this began to shift and conflict spread into new regions, displacing millions.

Last Thursday, a shipment of essential medicines and supplies arrived at the Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda, where more than 285,000 people are living after fleeing from neighboring countries like South Sudan. The medicines were delivered to Bidi Bidi with the help of humanitarian aviation company, Air Serv.

The shipment included an Emergency Health Kit and additional medicine and supplies to bolster the efforts of Real Medicine Foundation in providing primary healthcare to the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the Kiryandongo and Bidi Bidi refugee settlements.

Real Medicine Foundation has been tasked as UNHCR and the Office of the Prime Minister’s Health Implementing Partner in Kiryandongo and Bidi Bidi, overseeing 40 health clinics and supporting an additional four district and regional hospitals.

Direct Relief’s Emergency Health Kit is designed to provide health facilities with the essential emergency medicines and supplies required to meet the healthcare needs of patients following a natural or man-made disaster and emergency.

In addition to the kit, the shipment contains medicine such as anticonvulsants, antibiotics, antifungals, antihypertensive medicine, and IV fluids, which will be distributed to settlement health clinics and referral hospitals in Yumbe, Kiryandongo, Gulu and Arua.

The post Medicines Arrive at Bidi Bidi, Strengthening Care for South Sudanese Refugees appeared first on Direct Relief.

Between Aug. 1 and Oct. 30, 2017, 1,801 suspected cases were reported across the country, including places where plague is not usually seen. Of the confirmed and suspected cases, at least 127 have resulted in death, with numbers continuing to rise.

The plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis and presents in humans in three forms: bubonic (the most common form; infects the lymphatic system and is usually spread when an infected rodent or flea bites a person), septicemic (when the bacteria enters the bloodstream), and pneumonic (when the bacteria spreads to the lungs).

While bubonic plague is the most common form, the current outbreak has been mostly pneumonic cases. This is particularly alarming since the pneumonic form is the most lethal of the disease and spreads easily from person to person.

Pneumonic plague’s incubation period is 1 to 3 days, and if untreated, can be rapidly fatal. Antibiotics and supportive therapy, including IV fluids, are effective if a patient is diagnosed and treated quickly. Antibiotics can also be effective in preventing spread of plague if taken by those who have been in contact with someone diagnosed or suspected to have the plague. Personal protective equipment is also crucial for healthcare workers treating patients with confirmed or suspected cases.

Direct Relief is working directly with the Ministry of Public Health and the United Nations Population Fund Madagascar office to support plague centers and maternity centers in the regions of Analamanga and Atsinanana. Nine pallets of personal protective equipment, needles, syringes, IV fluids, and additional medicine and supplies are en route and will be arriving in the country on Sunday.

Direct Relief has historically partnered with UNFPA Madagascar to support district and regional hospitals in Madagascar, providing fistula repair services with Direct Relief’s Fistula Repair Modules.

The post Direct Relief Ships Medical Supplies, Protective Gear, as Plague Cases Rise in Madagascar appeared first on Direct Relief.