[5]Medical Teams International provides emergency medicines to Honduran flood survivors
Portland Agency provides nearly $1 million in aid this year
Medical Teams International [6] Release (PORTLAND, ORE.—Oct. 28, 2008) Medical Teams International is mobilizing a second emergency relief shipment of medical supplies, worth $482,000, to Honduras where thousands of families fighting floods still struggle to find food, shelter, medicines and clean water.
The relief items, including urgently need antibiotics, bandages and water purification kits, will help Honduran families displaced by tropical storms that swept the country last week. Subsequent torrential rains have flooded houses, destroyed crops, and washed out bridges and roads in Central America’s second poorest country.
Health workers with Medical Teams International’s Honduran partner, Project Global Village (PGV), will disperse the lifesaving medicines—enough to treat 10,000 Hondurans for three months—in shelters and clinics.
“Medicines make a life-saving difference in a disaster like this,” says Joe DiCarlo, director of emergency response at Medical Teams International. “Without antibiotics, chronic infections escalate to life-threatening diseases—especially for the very young and the elderly.”
Project Global Village already dispersed nearly $500,000 in health supplies Medical Teams International provided just before the floods broke.
“We’d nearly exhausted the health supplies we’d stockpiled before the floods,” says Chet Thomas, PGV’s executive director. “With this current crisis, malnutrition and preventable diseases—especially those in children—are likely to skyrocket. When you add the anticipated food shortage caused by the crop damage, the situation is desperate,” he added.
Volunteer doctors and nurses with Medical Teams International will arrive in Honduras on Nov. 10. They will provide critically needed back-up care to local health workers who are now on the scene.
Aid workers are comparing this current disaster to Honduras’ Hurricane Mitch, a cyclone that killed 10,000 people in 1998.
More than 96 percent of all contributions given help people who need it most. Donations can be made to the Honduras Flood Relief fund, Medical Teams International, P.O. Box 10, Portland, OR 97207-0010; or by calling 800-959-4325. Gifts can also be made securely online at www.medicalteams.org; or at any local US Bank location.
### Medical Teams International is a non-profit humanitarian relief and development agency that exists to demonstrate the love of Christ to people affected by disaster, conflict and poverty around the world. In its 29-year history, Medical Teams International has deployed more the 1,900 volunteer teams and shipped over $1.2 billion in antibiotics, surgical kits and lifesaving medicines to care for 35 million people in 100 countries.