Facilitating Cholera Care and Education in Haiti

The Grand Facilitator – that is one of the main roles Project HOPE is fulfilling in Haiti today to address the recent cholera outbreak.

In addition to providing medical volunteers, as well as donated medicines and medical supplies, to care for those now suffering from cholera and to assist in the prevention of the disease, Project HOPE is bringing a team of the world’s foremost experts in cholera to Haiti.

Project HOPE, with the assistance of HOPE volunteer and Massachusetts General Hospital physician Larry Ronan, is coordinating the participation of the International Center of Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) to assess the current situation and provide its clinical expertise to enhance the care of cholera patients.

The eight-person ICDDR,B team, under the direction of Dr. Alejandro Cravioto, is bringing decades of experience in the treatment of cholera and dysentery, as well as the management of major epidemic outbreaks. The ICDDR,B has assisted governments and local health authorities in countries such as Bahrain, Ecuador, Iraq, Mozambique, Peru, Zaire, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe, in successfully handling cholera outbreaks.

In addition to the ICDDR,B team, Project HOPE is facilitating the involvement of a four-person team from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with the ICDDR,B to help in the creation of a plan to slow and eventually stop the cholera outbreak.

Project HOPE has facilitated all of these resources, in addition to a volunteer team of physicians and nurses from the Massachusetts General Hospital and the delivery of nearly $200,000 of medical supplies in less than one week – all the result of 52 years of experience in dealing with natural disasters.

It is these types of resources – global expertise, medical volunteers and medicines and medical supplies – that Project HOPE is bringing to bear to benefit the people of Haiti and others around the world in need of our help.

Learn more about HOPE's response to the cholera outbreak in Haiti.

John

HOPE Delivering Humanitarian Assistance in Haiti

The world’s attention is once again focused on Haiti. In the face of this new crisis, Project HOPE is on the scene delivering humanitarian assistance.

The Haiti Ministry of Health contacted Project HOPE’s in-country office last week to inform us about a rapid increase in the number of reported cholera cases in the country’s Northwest region known as the Artibonite River Valley.

Our emergency response was set in action. Project HOPE soon delivered its first shipment of relief supplies to the city of Desdunes, a city in the Artibonite River Valley with a population of 40,000.

The relief supplies, which included antibacterial hand gels, Pedialyte oral rehydration, Life Straw water purifiers and bottled drinking water, were gratefully received by the Ministry of Health staff in Desdunes.

The desperate need for something as basic as antibacterial hand gel was experienced, in person, by a member of the HOPE staff. After the delivery of humanitarian supplies, our team was on its way back to Port-au-Prince. When they stopped for food along the road, the store clerk came up and said, “Please save my life. Do you have any hand gel?”

Our staff member returned to the truck and collected his three personal bottles of hand gel and gave them to the clerk, who then gave two of the bottles to a young boy and girl. It was then that he understood how worried the people in the affected area are about the outbreak.

In addition to supplies, a six-person team of HOPE volunteers from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston arrived this morning at L'hopital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles to augment our team of volunteers, already at the hospital, engaged in the care of cholera patients. Dr. Larry Ronan, a long-time HOPE volunteer, leads the MGH physicians and nurses.

As more details become available from our team in Haiti, I look forward to sharing them with you, through my blog and on the HOPE website.

Again, thank you for your support of HOPE’s emergency relief efforts for the many Haitians now in need.