More Than Food: WFP Building Health Centers, Flying In Aid Workers and Life-Saving Supplies To Support The Ebola Response
“This is human suffering at its most complicated. I said to our health partners, ‘Tell us what more we can do, how we can do better to help you.’ At WFP, we are shifting our gears to keep up with this huge challenge. We’re delivering food, logistic support, planes, helicopters, ships and building treatment centres,” said Denise Brown, WFP’s Regional Director for West Africa.
WFP’s response to the Ebola outbreak includes:
WFP’s food assistance is provided to patients in Ebola treatment centres, survivors of Ebola discharged from treatment centres and communities with widespread and intense transmission – including the families of people infected with Ebola who are in treatment, deceased, or recovering. This helps to stabilize affected communities by enabling them to limit unnecessary movement.
Food distributions are ongoing in all three countries, in both urban and rural areas, often house-to-house, one family at a time — and more food is on the way. WFP has contracted a ship that is currently in Cotonou, Benin, loading 7,000 metric tons of rice to be transported to Monrovia and Freetown.
The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), managed by WFP, has opened a new air corridor between Dakar, Accra, Freetown, Monrovia and Conakry to facilitate the rapid deployment of humanitarian staff to the field. UNHAS was already operating between the affected countries and has transported 497 passengers and 6.6 metric tons of light cargo for 25 organizations (NGO, UN, donors, government partners and media), using two fixed-wing aircraft and one helicopter.
WFP is providing unprecedented logistics support to help medical services to treat and prevent the spread of the virus. In Liberia’s capital Monrovia, WFP field engineers are setting up four Ebola Treatment Units with a capacity of 400 beds.
WFP is helping to quantify the impact of the health crisis on household food security through an innovative technique called “mVAM,” using mobile phones for surveys that are normally done in person. In Sierra Leone, data collection via SMS has been completed for a sample of 800 households. In Guinea and Liberia, WFP is preparing data collection through interactive voice response.
The UN Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD), managed by WFP, continues to support the response efforts of the World Health Organization, WFP, Irish Aid and Japan International Cooperation Agency. UNHRD depots in Dubai (UAE), Accra (Ghana), and Las Palmas (Spain) have so far dispatched 224 metric tons, worth US$ 1.9 million, of protective gear, emergency health kits and equipment to the region. Weekly dispatches are ongoing.
# # #
High resolution photographs of the Ebola response can be obtained by contacting rein.skullerud@wfp.org and for broadcast-quality video showing the Ebola food aid and logistics services, please contact jonathan.dumont@wfp.org
WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food in emergencies and working with communities to build resilience. In 2013, WFP assisted more than 80 million people in 75 countries.
For more information, contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):
Alexis Masciarelli, WFP/Dakar, Mob. +221 77 637 5964
Elisabeth Byrs, WFP/Geneva, Tel. +41 22 917 8564, Mob. +41 79 473 4570
Martin Penner, WFP/Monrovia, Mob. +231 776 500242
Djaounsede Pardon, WFP/Freetown, Mob. +232 79859690
Merel Van Egdom, WFP/Conakry, Tel. +224 628 68 3923
Frances Kennedy, WFP/Rome, Tel. +39 06 6513 3725, Mob. +39 346 760 0806
Gregory Barrow, WFP/London, Tel. +44 20 72409001, Mob. +44 7968 008474
Bettina Luescher, WFP/New York, Tel. +1 646 556 6909, Mob. +1 646 824 1112
