UPDATE: AmeriCares Sends Relief Team to Fiji

Updated: 5:46 p.m. Feb. 21:

AmeriCares announced Sunday night that it has an emergency response team en route to Fiji to help with the recovery from Cyclone Winston.

The Category 5 storm – the strongest on record in the Southern Hemisphere – made landfall Saturday evening local time, leaving a path of destruction including flattened homes and downed power lines. Six people are confirmed dead, hundreds of homes are damaged or destroyed, and 80 percent of the island is without power. Fiji’s government has declared a month-long state of natural disaster to recover from the catastrophic cyclone.

“The full extent of the damage is still unknown, but given the severity of the storm we are very concerned about the health and safety of survivors,” AmeriCares Vice President of Emergency Response Garrett Ingoglia said in a statement. “We have a team on the way and aid shipments ready to go.”

AmeriCares stocks emergency medicines and relief supplies in its warehouses in the U.S., Europe and India that can be delivered quickly in times of crisis. For Fiji, AmeriCares has 5,000 pounds of medical and relief supplies prepared and ready to be shipped.

Two major hospitals in Fiji have reported damage, including a hospital in the capital city where labor and delivery rooms, the intensive care unit and an operating room were flooded. Part of the roof of another hospital was blown off, forcing patients to be relocated, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Original story: 10:01 a.m. Feb. 21:

AmeriCares has more than $3 million in medicine on the way to help children and families in war-torn Syria.

AmeriCares, the Stamford-based emergency response and global health organization, has shipments of antibiotics, cardiovascular medicine, intravenous fluids and diabetes medication in transit.

And AmeriCares has relief workers on stand-by ready to assist the recovery from Cyclone Winston in Fiji. The storm, the most powerful to ever to hit Fiji, made landfall on the archipelago nation’s most populous island Saturday evening local time, knocking out electricity and damaging homes. The government has declared a state of natural disaster for 30 days in the nation home to about 900,000 people.

“We still don’t know the full extent of the damage,” said AmeriCares Vice President of Emergency Response Garrett Ingoglia. “AmeriCares is prepared to deploy relief workers and provide medicines and relief supplies if international assistance is needed.”

Support of the Syrian American Medical Society

The shipments of medicine from AmeriCares will support the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), which operates over 100 medical facilities in Syria, including underground trauma hospitals. SAMS also supports dozens more medical facilities with medicine, supplies, equipment and medical personnel. GSK, Sanofi Foundation for NA and Boehringer Ingelheim Cares Foundation have donated medicine to AmeriCares for the effort.

Five years of war in Syria have destroyed infrastructure, displaced millions and put the health of millions more at risk. Of the estimated 470,000 war-related deaths in Syria, 70,000 have been attributed to a lack of health care services and sanitation, according to new research from the Syrian Center for Policy Research, a think tank studying the socioeconomic impact of the conflict. The deteriorating living conditions and diminished health services have brought the life expectancy in Syria down from 70.5 years to 55.4 years in the last five years, according to the research. Medical facilities have been damaged or destroyed in the violence, including recent attacks on two hospitals in Idlib supported by SAMS.

“Syria’s health care system has been devastated,” said AmeriCares Vice President of Emergency Response Garrett Ingoglia. “The population not only faces risks from bombs and bullets, but also from a range of chronic and acute illnesses. The medicine we are providing will be put to use immediately to help save lives and protect the health of civilians in Syria.”

AmeriCares has been supporting health services for families affected by the Syria crisis since 2012. To date, AmeriCares has delivered more than $7 million in medical aid in response to the crisis, including essential primary care medicines, chronic disease care medications and intravenous fluids. AmeriCares aid has supported health care services in Syria, as well as medical care for Syrian families seeking refuge in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. As the numbers of desperate Syrians fleeing to Europe increased in 2015, AmeriCares expanded its work to include support for refugees arriving in Greece.

To support AmeriCares work in Syria please go to www.americares.org/refugees.

Photo courtesy of Syrian American Medical Society: SAMS-supported mobile clinics bring primary care to displaced and hard-to-reach populations in Syria.