Additional Aid Dispatched to Bangladesh, India

Experienced emergency-response partners mobilizing health services for displaced millions

June 12, 2009

With more than 3.9 million people affected by Cyclone Aila, Direct Relief has provided additional aid consignments to partners caring for the displaced in India and Bangladesh. Emergency response modules containing medical supplies have been sent to Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences in India and Sangkalpa Trust in Bangladesh, two longtime Direct Relief partners working in-country and with extensive experience in emergency response.

To treat a range of health needs common during massive flooding, such as diarrheal diseases and trauma, the emergency aid module includes water purification tablets and oral rehydration solution, wound-care supplies such as sutures, and medicines for pain and depression. Intense flooding often compromises water and sanitation systems; in Bangladesh, partners report that a 12-foot wall of sea water surged inland during Cyclone Aila, tainting wells with salt water and ruining crops.

Immediately following the cyclone, Sangkalpa Trust established four mobile health camps for the displaced in Bangladesh, staffed by doctors and nurses from its clinic in Pathargatha. Direct Relief’s emergency aid will stock these temporary clinics where the displaced can receive care. Sangkalpa Trust was established specifically to help Bangladeshi people who are vulnerable to seasonal flooding and cyclones like Sidr in 2007 and now Aila, which struck in the same region.

The West Bengal region of northern India also felt the brunt of Aila’s winds and flooding, which displaced large populations there. Direct Relief has deployed an emergency aid module to AIMS, a partner since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, to help it treat the displaced. Based in the southern part of the country, AIMS is transporting its mobile medical unit, a telemedicine van provided with funds from Direct Relief, to temporary shelters in the affected region.

Additional aid shipments will be dispatched as necessary to help partners provide health services to the cyclone-affected populations in India and Bangladesh.

Direct Relief Medical Aid Supports Cyclone Aila Response

Consignment deployed in advance of cyclone season to trusted partner in Bangladesh

May 27, 2009

Direct Relief's consignment of medical aid delivered in advance of cyclone season has been activated in response to Cyclone Aila, which struck May 25, displacing more than 500,000 people in Bangladesh. A 40-foot ocean container of medical supplies and medicines, valued at $477,780 (wholesale), was delivered May 13 to Sangkalpa Trust in advance of cyclone season. The consignment included materials specifically needed during cyclone response, including antibiotics, analgesics, syringes, wheelchairs, autoclaves, oral rehydration solutions, pediatric nutritionals, and personal care products.

Direct Relief’s Asia program officer Matt MacCalla was in Bangladesh when Cyclone Aila hit, on a follow-up assessment trip with partners who responded to 2007’s Cyclone Sidr. That response informed Direct Relief’s Cyclone Preparedness Program, launched earlier this year, and identified trusted partners well suited to cyclone- and flood-oriented emergency response in the region, including Sangkalpa Trust.

Nongovernmental, apolitical Sangkalpa Trust was founded in 1984 expressly to provide aid to people in Bangladesh affected by cyclones, which recur every year. Sangkalpa Trust is headquartered in Patharghata, in the southern part of the country near the Bay of Bengal, where cyclones strike most often. It establishes temporary medical clinics among displaced populations following cyclones, in addition to providing shelter, clothing, clean water, education, and legal services. Its regular catchment area includes 126,000 people, and extends to 500,000 when a cyclone strikes.

Cyclone Aila’s 60-mile-an-hour winds and heavy rain have uprooted trees, damaged homes, and caused massive flooding in Bangladesh’s low-lying southern delta region. Fishermen and families living along the coastline have been most affected by the cyclone, a cycle that repeats every year. Sangkalpa Trust reports seeing an influx of patients with injuries among the displaced, and is preparing to treat an increase in waterborne diseases that typically follow floods.

Tapping into emergency-designated funds, Direct Relief is providing additional emergency aid to support Sangkalpa Trust’s temporary clinics among the displaced in Bangladesh, and to partners in India caring for cyclone-affected people.