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Emergency Response Update

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Emergency Response Update April 15, 2020 Emergency Response Update Americares continues to focus our COVID-19 response on the delivery of personal protective equipment (PPE) and infection prevention and control (IPC) supplies to outbreak hotspots, critical training for frontline health workers and continuity of operations at our own clinical care sites. To-date, Americares has sent more than 25 tons of PPE and IPC supplies to support partners across 39 U.S. states*, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Haiti, Honduras, India, Lebanon, the Philippines and Tanzania. However, today, we wanted to provide you with a special snapshot from Haiti to demonstrate the ways in which Americares international field teams have been working with local partners to prepare vulnerable communities for an anticipated surge in COVID-19 infections. Over the past year, Haiti has been wracked by political unrest, creating further instability in the persistently impoverished country. While the COVID-19 case count is still low—40 confirmed cases and 3 deaths—the testing is limited and the risks are high due to a compromised public health system, limited access to healthcare and extreme poverty. Americares has had a permanent presence in Haiti since the earthquake in 2010 with interventions focused on providing access to medicine, health center capacity building and emergency response. With well-established working relationships with the national health ministry and numerous local health centers, Americares has been able to help in the following ways: - Coordinated a pooled procurement of PPE from an international supplier with NGO partners for distribution across local health networks - Procured COVID-19 essentials locally, including PPE, hygiene and cleaning supplies - Set up hands-free community washing stations to promote safe hygiene practices - Procuring and distributing oxygen tanks, pulse oximeters and other critical equipment for local health centers - Assessing changes in the hospital referral network to determine where patients with COVID-19 will be treated and organizing emergency transport for the most serious cases - Providing technical assistance to health centers around COVID-19 preparedness and prevention - Disseminating COVID-19 health information to communities by deploying community health workers, hiring sound trucks, buying radio spots and posting flyers and posters Says Jonathan Hughes, Americares Associate Director, Latin America and the Caribbean, “Probably the most critical area that we can focus on in Haiti at the moment is community health. The health centers that we work with are basically the only health centers for upwards of 50,000 people each. These are places of extremely high rates of poverty and extremely low rates of education and literacy, which provides increased challenges to the current outbreak. The community health workers are the first line of defense. So, our ability to train them with as much information as possible is going to be absolutely critical.” Thank you for your support. Please stay safe and be in touch with any questions you may have about this evolving global emergency and Americares response. Below are pictures from our recent product distribution to partner health facilities in Haiti. *U.S. states and territories supported with COVID-19 PPE and IPC supplies to-date: Alabama Iowa Michigan Oklahoma Virginia Arizona Idaho Minnesota Pennsylvania Washington Arkansas Illinois Missouri Puerto Rico Wisconsin California Indiana Nebraska South Carolina Wyoming Colorado Kansas New Jersey South Dakota Connecticut Louisiana New York Tennessee Florida Maine North Carolina Texas Georgia Maryland North Dakota Utah Hawaii Massachusetts Ohio Vermont .
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