HelpHaiti – Cholera

(Community Matters) received a note this morning from our partner in Haiti, ConcernWorldwide.  We’ve been in regular contact with Partners in Health, the summary from which I blogged about last week.

Concern’s summary:

OVERVIEW

On our response in Saut d’Eau and Port au Prince (PAP) :

• The plan is to serve all people (approx 155,000 people) in the PAP camps in which Concern is already providing services—we are already doing distributions of  supplies of soap, aquatabs and ORS (rehydration salt to be diluted in 1 liter water), and are doing an intense public health/sensitization campaign on cholera (messaging on prevention, where to seek treatment, and what to do if diarrhea occurs).
• We are doing the same in the Central Plateau (Saut d’Eau ) where there are cholera cases and deaths confirmed and on La Gonave island (there in collaboration with World Vision) where there are no cases reported so far.

Our cholera prevention response is targeting three regions: Port-au-Prince, Saut d’Eau, and La Gonâve.

DETAILS

SAUT D’EAU

• 6,000 Households or 30,000 people and schools and 1 Health Centre targeted in the response which began on Sunday 24^th October 2010.
• A total of 4,900 (number to be confirmed) households in two villages (Rivere Canot and Lesselle) were reached today, and supplied with standard ration of Soap and Aquatabs. The rations were supplied to community leaders (number to be availed) who will then distribute to the villagers: This increases to 5,900 households the number reached since Concern intervention begun on Sunday 24^th.  The rations are: 5 bars soap per HH; 50-70 aquatabs per HH and 1 ORS sachet per HH.

Distributions

• 24,500 bars of soap ( I bar is 125 grams) supplied today and 5,000 bars yesterday, total 29,500 bars in Sudo
• 245,000 aquatab tablets supplied today and 50,000 yesterday, total 295,000 tablets
• 1000 ORS sachets supplied yesterday and NIL today, total 1,000 sachets to date
• I box of aquatab (15,000 tablets) was supplied to Mirabalais Health Centre today by Karina

PORT AU PRINCE

• Interventions ongoing in 8 locations ; Place de la Paix, Boliman, Oscar, St. Bernadette, Tabarre Issa, Dahomey, Martissant and Venus & Environs (Bormache, Nazareth, Venus)
• No new suspected cholera cases reported in camps where Concern is operational
• The first Hygiene kit distribution in the camps took place today, 27^th in Oscarte camp. A total of 495 households were reached. 2,475 bars of soap, at least 25,000 tablets of aquatab and 500 ORS tablets were distributed. The distribution went on successfully.
• A total of 91 of the 132 new/additional hand washing with soap stations targeted are now installed and operational, bringing total number to 140. The balance of 36 to be completed tomorrow, on 28^th October. When finished, total number of HWWSS functional in PAP will reach 186
• A total of 568m3 of water (estimated) supplied today, bringing total since Saturday 22^nd to 3308 m3 (876,620 gallons). Messages at tapstands informing people that water is treated have been mounted from today, 27^th . Two bladders were cleaned, in Place de La Paix and Boliman
• Ten (10) water quality tests (for Free Residual Chlorine) were carried out today at HH level, all showing FRC levels of 0.4 mg/l and above
• A record number of 130 Hygiene Promoters were deployed today in various camps to disseminate messages. 76 of these were deployed in Oscar alone, and the rest in the other 7 locations in PAP.
• Latrine disinfection, cleaning and dislodging as well as solid waste and drainage clean up was intensified in the 8 locations

LA GONÂVE

• A total of 1500 HH are targeted for messaging and hygiene kit distribution by Concern only and another 16,834 for messaging only (in collaboration with PLATFORM)
• Hygiene kit (soap, ORS and aquatabs) distributions done in 3 villages Petit Anse, Picmy and Opac
• A total of 38,884 copies of Cholera messages/pamphlets have been distributed to an estimated 16,834 households in 41 villages of Anse a Galets and Pointes a Raquet communes.