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Nepal Earthquake Poses Challenge to International Aid Agencies

NEW YORK TIMES  by Mark Scott                                                                          April 27, 2015

LONDON — International aid agencies and governments mobilized on Sunday to respond to the earthquake in Nepal, saying they faced challenges in getting assistance to the country and distributing it amid the widespread devastation there.

 

Displaced residents waiting in line to receive drinking water in Katmandu on Sunday. Credit Niranjan

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UN OCHA - Nepal: Worst Earthquake in Over 80 Years Leaves at Least 1000 Dead

                                 CLICK ON THE MAP IMAGE BELOW TO ENLARGE (1 page .PDF file)

      

unocha.org - April 25, 2015

A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal on 25 April, with the epicenter in Lamjung District (north-west) of Kathmandu. At present the death toll stands at over 1,000 dead but observers believe it is likely to increase.

"The reports of the devastation are still coming in and the numbers of people killed, injured and affected by this earthquake continue to rise", said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a statement today. "It is clear that very many lives have been lost. There has also been significant damage to Nepal’s irreplaceable cultural heritage".

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Drowned Migrants and ‘a Failure of Compassion’

      

As many as 950 migrants are feared dead after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean. Children are carried by rescue workers as migrants arrive via boat at the Sicilian harbour of Pozzallo

reuters.com - by Mike Corones - April 21, 2015

Already, this week’s migrant deaths in the Mediterranean are hard to tally.

As many as 900 refugees died in a shipwreck off of Libya on Sunday, the day before two other boats carrying 400 people faced distress off of Libya and three migrants died when yet another boat ran aground in Greece. As this Reuters graphic shows, the vast majority of illegal border crossings over the Mediterranean happen via central and eastern sea routes, a fact reflected in this week’s disasters.

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Vanuatu Risks Long-Term Food Insecurity After Monster Cyclone: U.N.

      

Many families affected by Tropical Cyclone Pam are forced to prepare their meals outdoors as seen here in Vanuatu. Photo: WFP/Victoria Cavanagh

reuters.com - by Alisa Tang - March 30, 2015

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The monster cyclone that hit Vanuatu earlier this month wiped out more than 90 percent of the archipelago's crops, putting its people at risk of a secondary emergency and long-term food insecurity, the United Nations warned on Monday.

Tropical Cyclone Pam destroyed homes, electricity infrastructure and crops when it swept across the South Pacific island nation on March 13, leaving at least 11 dead.

The United Nations issued an appeal last week for $29.9 million to provide an estimated 166,000 affected people with safe drinking water and shelter, but said only $6.4 million had been pledged.

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Ebola: Failures of Imagination

psandman.com - October 24th, 2014 -  Jody Lanard and Peter M. Sandman

The alleged U.S. over-reaction to the first three domestic Ebola cases in the United States – what Maryn McKenna calls Ebolanoia – is matched only by the world’s true under-reaction to the risks posed by Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. We are not referring to the current humanitarian catastrophe there, although the world has long been under-reacting to that.

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Hospitals Improvise Ebola Defenses, at a Cost

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                                                         Nov. 18, 2014

By David Caruso

NEW YORK ---What does it take to Ebola-proof a hospital?

Over the past few months, U.S. medical centers have spent millions of dollars putting together a plan to treat patients with the scary, but extremely rare disease.

To a large extent, it has been an exercise in improvisation.

A medical worker stands outside a patient care room in a new custom-built bio-containment unit for potential Ebola cases at Mount Sinai Hospital, in New York. The unit, built over two weeks, is completely separate from the main medical buildings and can house three patients simultaneously. (AP Photo/John Minchillo

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U.S. was ill-equipped to handle Ebola rescues, State Dept. contract reveals

      

For now, the world has to rely on a small, Georgia-based flight company for Ebola evacuations. (AP)

Life-saving gear needed to fly sick patients was in storage as epidemic grew

news.yahoo.com - by Jason Sickles - November 11, 2014

The air ambulance operation tasked with rescuing U.S. Ebola victims from West Africa was initially slowed by bureaucratic bungling and is now at risk of being overburdened as thousands of American troops deploy to fight the deadly disease.

Yahoo News has learned the U.S. government spent millions last decade to develop and build two of the world’s only isolation chambers for flying contagious patients — but as the epidemic raged in West Africa this summer and American aid workers there needed evacuating, the medical inventions were packed away in a small-town Georgia warehouse.

The troubling lack of preparedness by federal agencies forced the State Department to put up $4.9 million as part of a rushed contract to employ a commercial aviator to safely evacuate Ebola-infected Americans from West Africa.

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No Time for a Learning Curve: Nigeria’s Crucial Success against Ebola


AFRICA CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES, Washington D.C.                        Nov. 12, 2014

Summary of lessons learned from Nigeria and Uganda in containing outbreaks of Ebola

“If a country like Nigeria, hampered by serious security problems, can do this – that is, make significant progress towards interrupting polio transmission, eradicate guinea-worm disease and contain Ebola, all at the same time,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, “any country in the world experiencing an imported case can hold onward transmission to just a handful of cases....”

"Numerous African states have identified and refined the best ways of containing the disease."

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http://africacenter.org/2014/11/no-time-for-a-learning-curve-nigerias-crucial-success-against-ebola/?utm_source=November+14++2014+EN&utm_campaign=11%2F14%2F2014&utm_medium=email

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Liberia to end Ebola state of emergency

Sirleaf said her country would not become complacent after the gains made in fight against Ebola [Getty Images]14 Nov 2014 07:54 aljazeera.com

President Sirleaf says while country has made progress against virus, more still needs to be done to end the epidemic.

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said that she would not seek an extension to a state of emergency imposed in August over Ebola.

Her announcement on Thursday is a sign of progress in the fight against the disease, which has killed more than 2,800 people in Liberia since breaking out in West Africa in March.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/11/liberia-end-ebola-state-emergency-201411145555126551.html

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