WHO responding to health needs caused by Typhoon Haiyan (“Yolanda”)

11 November 2013 | MANILA, Philippines - WHO has activated an organization-wide mobilization to work closely with the Department of Health, Philippines (DoH) to organize relief efforts for the survivors of Typhoon Haiyan.

The typhoon – locally known as Yolanda – ravaged the central part of the archipelago Friday morning with winds reaching speeds of more than 250 km per hour causing storm surges of up to 5 metres. Many people living in these affected areas were injured and the devastating effects of this typhoon left already vulnerable health facilities damaged or completely destroyed. As a result of the breadth and severity of the storm, health services in the worst affected areas no longer exist or are severely stretched, with medical supplies in very short supply.

“We are working closely with the Philippine Government and local authorities to assess and rapidly address the life-saving needs of the people affected by this typhoon,” says Dr Julie Hall, WHO Representative to the Philippines. “WHO has an assessment team on the ground in Bohol, and we are sending teams to Cebu and Tacloban with the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) teams in support of national response efforts. WHO is flying in more than two dozen health emergency relief experts and emergency health kits for the initial response.”

The Government estimates that some 4.5 million people have been affected in the Central Philippines. WHO is mobilizing supplies to assist the Government in providing a coordinated, effective and rapid response:

• An initial shipment of four emergency kits with medicines and supplies to cover basic health needs of 120?000 persons during one month and supplies to perform 400 surgical interventions are being deployed. Four diarrhoeal disease kits with medicines and supplies to treat 3000 cases of acute diarrhoea are also being sent.
• WHO is also supporting the Department of Health (DoH) in strengthening its early warning alert and response network (EWARN) to rapidly detect disease outbreaks and other public health threats related to food and environmental hazards.
• The Government is receiving international assistance such as field hospitals and medical teams, and WHO is working closely with the Government to ensure those supplies and teams go where they are needed most.
• Medical storage spaces have also been damaged, and WHO is working to re-establish logistics bases for new supplies that are arriving.

In the aftermath of the typhoon, reaching the affected areas and people has proven to be a sizeable logistical challenge. The true extent of the death and destruction has yet to be quantified. The super typhoon ripped roofs off houses and uprooted trees, interrupting telecommunications and electricity supplies. Many air- and sea-ports in the affected areas are closed. Until roads are cleared, movement will be difficult in these areas, posing significant logistical challenges to emergency relief operations.

Adding to the complexity of this response, another tropical storm is expected to hit the Philippines later this week. Foreign governments and international aid agencies have already pledged support in the form of air transportation and equipment, but more help is urgently needed to save the lives of the survivors.

WHO’s rapid deployment of health experts and supplies to the Philippines has been possible thanks to the financial support for surge capacity provided by numerous international partners, including the European Commission. Due to the magnitude of the disaster, WHO is seeking immediate financial contributions to cover initial response operations. A joint appeal by United Nations and non-governmental organizations will be issued in the coming days.

For more information, or for an interview with Dr Julie Hall, WHO Representative, please contact:

Ms Christine “Tiffany” Domingo-Cool
Event Response operations/Risk communications
Telephone: +639 15 710 4361
E-mail: domingoc@wpro.who.int

Christy Feig
Director of Communications
Telephone: +41 79 251 7055
E-mail: feigc@who.int

Gregory Hartl
Coordinator, News and Social Media
Telephone: +41 79 203 6715
E-mail: hartlg@who.int

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Typhoon babies fight against odds in ravaged Philippine city

By Stuart Grudgings

TACLOBAN, Philippines (Reuters) - In the chapel of the only functioning public hospital in typhoon-ravaged Tacloban, seven tiny, premature babies lie sweltering in intense heat, looked over by anxious mothers and a wooden statue of Christ.

An eighth, born two days after Friday's monster storm hit the central Philippines, is kept alive only by his exhausted grandmother who pumps air by hand into his sick lungs. Only one baby, his face bruised purple from a hurried delivery by forceps, is strong enough to cry.

The others are eerily quiet as they battle to survive in a hospital without power, clean water, and running out of essential medical supplies.

It remains the only medical option in the city of Tacloban for most survivors of Typhoon Haiyan, which may have killed thousands of people. The storm destroyed all but two hospitals in the city, one of them private.

"Our immediate problems are immense," said Dr. Alberto de Leon, the 62-year-old director of the hospital, the Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center, adding he nearly lost his own life in the surge of ocean water that accompanied Haiyan.

Caught unawares by the wall of water that engulfed the city of 220,000 on Friday morning, he clung to a refrigerator as the living room of his single-storey home filled almost to the ceiling.

At the entrance of the hospital, next to a sign asking people to take bodies straight to the morgue, urgent needs are listed on a makeshift sign: a generator, drinking water, oxygen, cooking gas, medicine and manpower.

A single gasoline-fuelled generator is the only source of power, leaving patients to sweat in dark corridors as they await treatment from a wide range of wounds caused by the churning, debris-packed seawater.

That also means there is no way to stop the bodies of 18 victims of the typhoon from decomposing in the morgue.

"I'm worried the newborns will get hospital-acquired infections," said de Leon. "The cadavers at the back could be a source."

Many of the 80 babies born in the hospital since the typhoon came prematurely, their mothers shocked into labor by Friday's trauma. In the chapel, a tangle of intravenous drips and oxygen has been planted between the pews to keep the newborns alive, but basic medicines are running short, nurses said.

The mostly Roman Catholic Philippines has one of Asia's highest birth rates, particularly in poorer areas such as the central Visayas region.

Nanette Salutan, 40, went into premature labor hours after the storm blew the roof off her house in a small town near Tacloban.

She then endured a two-hour ride on the back of a motorbike, dodging fallen trees and electricity poles, before giving birth by flashlight in the hospital early on Saturday.

Heavily pregnant Mary Jane Tevez, 16, and her husband escaped from their own collapsing house on Friday only to be trapped in the rapidly crumbling home of a neighbor. She began feeling unbearable pain in her pelvis even as they fought for their lives by sheltering under thick plywood.

Their baby boy was born early on Saturday. Its name? Yolando, the masculine version of Typhoon Haiyan's Philippine name Yolanda.

"It's because we don't want to forget what we had to go through and because we got another life," said his father, Meller Balabog.

(Editing by Dean Yates)

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WHO supporting Philippine Government with arrival of medical supplies after Typhoon Haiyan

12 November 2013 | MANILA, Philippines - Field hospitals, medical personnel, medicines and other medical supplies are arriving in the Philippines as countries and nongovernmental organizations around the world come to the support of the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan. In support of the Government of the Philippines, WHO is coordinating all health-related aspects of the emergency response to ensure the supplies are moved quickly to where health facilities and supplies are most damaged, such as Tacloban, Cebu and the west coast of Leyte.

WHO and its staff are working around the clock to support the Government in coordinating the incoming relief supplies from more than 30 international humanitarian health organizations to ensure there is minimum duplication of materials and medicines arriving at any one location, and that hospitals, personnel and supplies get as quickly as possible to those places where they are needed most.

Within 3 days of Typhoon Haiyan hitting the Philippines, field hospitals with medical teams from Belgium, Israel, Norway and Japan are currently on the ground. More teams from Australia and Germany are expected today and tomorrow.

Other country governments and nongovernmental organizations that have pledged their support include: Canada, Finland, Hungary, Indonesia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Viet Nam. The field hospitals will be set up at locations where local hospitals have been destroyed. They are fully self-sufficient – bringing all of their own food, water, electricity, medical supplies and personnel.

The health needs in this disaster are significant. In addition to responding to injuries and trauma, “regular” health needs will also need to be met in very challenging circumstances. For instance, it is expected that 12?000 babies will be born this month in the affected areas. People with noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes or heart disease will need to continue receiving their regular medication. WHO is working with the Government and partners to provide necessary assistance.

WHO has already deployed medicines and supplies to perform 400 surgeries and cover the basic health needs of 120?000 people for one month. Special diarrhoeal disease kits with medicines and supplies to treat 3000 cases of acute diarrhoea are also en route, since contaminated water is a frequent cause of diarrhoea.

With another tropical storm expected to hit the Philippines later this week, the need for safe water and sanitation facilities is critical. WHO is working with other humanitarian organizations to secure urgently needed water purification tablets.

Crowded living conditions and contaminated drinking water can lead to the spread of infectious diseases which can exacerbate health problems. The key is catching these diseases early before they can spread. WHO is also helping the Government to strengthen its early warning alert and response network (EWARN) to rapidly detect disease outbreaks and other public health threats.

For more information, or for an interview with Dr Julie Hall, WHO Representative, please contact:

Rachel Parry
Communications
Telephone: +63 949 766 5478
E-mail: manilakings@gmail.com

Christy Feig
Director of Communications
Telephone: +41 79 251 7055
E-mail: feigc@who.int

Gregory Hartl
Coordinator, News and Social Media
Telephone: +41 79 203 6715
E-mail: hartlg@who.int

Tarik Jasarevic
Communications Officer
Telephone: +41 79 367 6214
E-mail: jasarevict@who.int

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