I agree. The question is whether we can alter the trajectory of disease with better assessment, surveillance, and rapid response. What we engaged in Haiti worked, but it was never scaled appropriately.
We can do better in Nepal. The monsoon season is only a couple months away. Efforts we need to be scaled immediately.
Mike
Dr. Michael D. McDonald
Coordinator
Global Health Response and Resilience Alliance
"Beach ball" mobile antenna being inflated in Chautara, Nepal, image provided by the World Food Programme, 12 May 2015.
trust.org - in.reuters.com - by Joseph D'Urso - May 12, 2015
LONDON, May 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Buildings wrecked by Tuesday's earthquake in Nepal, already weakened by last month's huge quake which killed over 8,000, will take years to rebuild. But another type of infrastructure will bounce back much sooner: communication networks.
Enabling aid workers and civilians to access the internet, make a phone call or send a text is now seen as a vital part of any humanitarian response. The World Food Programme (WFP) has deployed some innovative kit to make this possible in Nepal.
NEW YORK TIMES OPINON PAGE by Andrew Revkin April 29, 2015
Yesterday, I received word of a chillingly high projection of the eventual death count in the Nepal earthquake, made by a longtime and respected analyst of seismic hazards, Max Wyss, who was on the faculties of the Universities of Colorado and Alaska and is now affiliated with the International Center for Earth Simulationin Geneva, Switzerland.
Five days after one of history’s most devastating earthquakes hit Nepal, countries near and far are pouring in funds and personnel to address the state of emergency. Leading the pack in terms of medical and rescue personnel on the ground is Israel, with an aid convoy of 260 personnel, including about forty doctors. . . . the Israeli team is using innovative and ingenious technology to rescue more people from the areas of destruction and to provide first-class medical care to those who need it most.
Expert medical and non-medical expert teams are assisting victims of the Nepal Earthquake, which shook the Kathmandu Valley before noon on Saturday 25 April.
msf.org.uk
We currently have approximately 120 staff working in Nepal.
An MSF surgical team provided support for three days at the hospital in Bhaktapur, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, in order to help the staff operate on waiting patients.
In the town of Arughat, in Gorkha district, we are setting up a 20-bed inflatable hospital to initially provide treatment for wounded people.
We are adding mental health workers to our teams to begin providing psychological first aid in villages where people have suffered severe psychological trauma.
We have flown in more than 80 tonnes of supplies.
Update: 5 May 2015
Since 29 April, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) medical teams in Nepal have started reaching people spread across isolated mountain villages by helicopter and on foot. The districts of Dhading, Gorkha, Rasuwa and Sindhupalchowk were hit hard on 25 April and little or no assistance has reached many villages.
A hexayurt is a shelter designed for people with a small housing budget.
The Hexayurt can be made from about $300 of materials from Home Depot, plus about $100-150 of mail-ordered tape. Depending on the construction technique, it takes 4-8 hours to prepare at home and 1-4 hours of assembly at your destination.
Here are the specifics on the 8 ft. version (aka H12) . . .
Red Cross voluntaries hand out tarpaulins and put up tents in the village of Khalckok in Nepal. Palani Mohan/IFRC
ifrc.org - by Patrick Fuller May 6, 2015
To the casual observer, the busy highway between Kathmandu and the town of Kavere, gives a misleading impression of the extent of the destruction caused by the 25 April earthquake. Life goes on as normal and homes and shops are untouched. It’s not until you turn off the road at the town of Sangha and travel three kilometres up a bumpy dirt track into the surrounding hills, that the true picture of this disaster unfolds.
A team of young Nepal Red Cross Society volunteers is delivering tents and tarpaulins to households in the remote village of Khalchok, perched high on a ridge traversing a series of hill-tops. 115 of the 135 homes in the community are either totally destroyed or uninhabitable. The higher you travel, the worse the damage becomes. When the track ends, the volunteers disembark from the 4-wheeled drive vehicle and start to carry the first of the family tents on a half hour trek up a narrow path to what remains of the home of Subash Lama.
SHELTERBOXUSA April 28, 2015 (Scroll down for related story)
Kathmandu, Nepal ---A ShelterBox response team is in Nepal to see how ShelterBox can be of assistance following an earthquake measuring 7.8 in magnitude....
... ShelterBox already has aid, including tents, prepositioned in the country, which could be used as emergency clinics, as well as shelters in the immediate aftermath. Read complete report. http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1237220?ref=feeds%2Flatest
ROTARY NEWS April 27, 2015 "Rotarians worldwide stand together in expressing a profound sadness at the devastation resulting from this weekend's deadly earthquake in Nepal," says RI President Gary C.K. Huang. "As we mourn the thousands of lives lost, Rotary joins other international agencies in providing immediate relief to survivors and mobilizing our expertise to support long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts throughout the country."
EKANTIPUR.COM by Manish Gautam and Pranaya SJB Rana April 20, 2015 Nepal -- More than two weeks later, the mystery disease in Jajarkot has finally been identified as swine flu. With 24 people dead and thousands infected in a number of remote VDCs in Jajarkot, the disease has made national headlines. Yet, many have criticised the government for its lackluster response to the outbreak.
A team led by Health Minister Khaganath Adhikari visited the outbreak sites only after a dozen people had died. The team returned with inadequate samples for testing, prolonging the diagnosis period. Since then, a medical team of roughly 40 medical personnel from the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division (EDCD), the World Health Organisation, and the Nepal Army have been deployed to the outbreak sites.
Yet, there is little sign of the disease abating. Manish Gautam and Pranaya SJB Rana spoke to Dr Baburam Marasini, the harried director of the EDCD, on the state’s response to the outbreak, the EDCD’s complaints of a lack of funding, and the state’s preparedness for such epidemics.
Drone footage shot by ABC cameraman Brant Cumming in the Gorkha district shows buildings reduced to rubble by the April 25 earthquake. This video highlights the remoteness of the affected areas in Nepal and the difficulties faced by rescue personnel struggling to reach them.
submitted by George Hurlburt
theconversation.com - by Gerard Fitzgerald, Apil Gurung, and Bharat Raj Poudel - May 5, 2015
The media in Nepal has been instrumental in keeping people connected and updated about the recent magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit the country on Saturday April 25.
However, initially the quake did not create a major reaction, as small scale tremors are not uncommon in the country. The Nepalese people were also unclear about the extent of the disaster as local media struggled to react to the earthquake.
The reality of the scale of the disaster began to sink in when heartbreaking pictures of the damage started emerging. Live footage and pictures from the international media gave some insight into the extent of the devastation in the earthquake ravaged nation.
Recent Comments