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Crisis and Emergency Management

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February 2005                                                                            Volume 8 - Number 1

Tsunami Disaster Updates...

World Health Organization’s (WHO) Tsunami relief efforts

By Kashif Javaid

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been providing on-going health maintenance and improvement efforts in the Tsunami impacted region. Three to five million displaced people are living in small camps and are exposed to the risk of respiratory infections and water-borne diseases. WHO has so far managed to prevent disease outbreaks by working with authorities and other relief groups. The organization has provided water purification tablets, testing kits, and mosquito and fly eradication materials to the relief camps having poor sanitation.

WHO has been focusing on implementing an early warning system for disease surveillance and on reinforcing this system in the affected region. The affected and displaced population in the resource-poor countries is also exposed to extreme stressors that represent risks for mental health problems. The WHO Director-General, Dr Lee Jong-wook, while in Jakarta, Indonesia said last week: “We are extremely concerned about the on-going lack of access to basic needs. Five million people have been severely affected by the Tsunamis. We now estimate that as many as 150,000 people are at extreme risk, if a major disease outbreak in the affected areas occurs. The most urgent need now is to make sure everyone has access to safe drinking water”

To ensure that the public health needs are met, WHO is providing guidance to national authorities, NGOs and other UN organizations. The organization is planning to move laboratory support to relief camps to identify the cause of disease outbreaks and to rule out disease outbreak rumors. The organization has issued a public health emergency strategy which comprises of five key objectives as follows:

1. Surveillance of disease: To detect potential health threats as they emerge, verify and respond to them.

2. Access to essential health care – through assessing and responding to need: Collecting information from reviews of the damaged health service infrastructure, outlining the health needs and making this available to all relief and recovery organizations.

3. Essential public health: Development of standards and procedures on disposing dead bodies, disease response, maintaining water quality, vaccination programs etc.

4. Strengthening supply systems: Ensuring the on-demand availability of medicines, equipment, transport and other vital assets. Enabling native health groups to obtain such items themselves.

5. Coordination of the international health response: Brief donors and support groups to manage assistance and to achieve the best possible relief results.

Sri Lanka’s President has requested WHO’s support in helping Sri Lanka maintain a “disaster management system” in the future. This center will focus on crisis management and provide relief efforts in situations such as disease outbreaks, droughts, floods and other natural disasters. WHO’s role in the Tsunami relief efforts has placed the organization to provide an on-going role in the affected countries. During the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan on 18-22 January, 2005, delegates adapted the health emergency strategy framework. The implementation of this framework requires a minimum of $66 million USD.

Sources: www.who.int and www.paho.org