REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE
Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was also attended by spokespersons of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Health Organization, the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Cholera in Haiti
Elysabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the United Nations, its partners as well as non-governmental organizations were stepping up their response to the cholera epidemic in Haiti. In Artibonite, the epicentre of the epidemic, about 20 organizations were working to tackle this issue and six cholera treatment centers were currently being established. A public sensitization campaign using local radio stations and heads of camp committees was also conducted to inform the population of preventive measures and how to recognize cases of cholera. Assessments showed that the majority of cholera cases involved people from rural areas where rice growing was prevalent, notably Artibonite.
The authorities of the Dominican Republic had, for their part, launched a contingency plan in the border area. There were also reports of partially closed borders at Ounaminte, Balladere, Malpasse and Anse-à-Pitre to anyone not holding a passport. Medical assistance, supplies and equipment for water purification and cholera transmission prevention were being distributed. Fourty per cent of the people in the 17 most affected communal sections had been reached with such distributions. More details were available in the note at the back of the room, said Ms. Byrs.
Asked about the source of the epidemic, Ms. Byrs said water from the river Artibonite has tested positive for cholera and it was believed that people in contact with river water were among the first victims.
Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said as of 25 October Haiti’s Ministère de la Santé Publique et de la Population, with support from partners like the Pan American Health Organization, has reported 259 fatalities and 3,342 confirmed cases of cholera. Currently 12 cholera treatment centres were being built to support isolation and treatment of cases: six in Artibonite, one in Central, and five in Port-au-Prince. The emphasis was on prevention by ensuring clean water, promoting good personal hygiene, and food handling practices, including hand washing and trying to prevent defecation in open areas. No cases of cholera had been reported in the Dominican Republic, but as indicated by Ms. Byrs, the outbreak had prompted the Government to mobilize a contingency plan in the border area.
As just under half of reported fatalities so far had taken place in hospitals and more than half in communities, the Pan American Health Organization was in the process of mobilizing experts in the area of proper body disposal to travel to Haiti. It also continued to mobilize international experts in the fields of epidemiology, risk communication, case management, laboratory, water and sanitation, logistics, and humanitarian supply management system to Haiti and to the Dominican Republic, Ms. Chaib said. The Pan American Health Organization had also established stocks in a deposit close to Port-au-Prince, including 750,000 rehydration salt sachets to be used to treat some 100,000 moderately grave cases. IV fluids for some 4,000 cases were also available and WHO had given the Haitian authorities 300,000 antibiotics.
A press release published yesterday by the Pan American Health Organization and a situation report of 25 October were available at the back of the room, said Ms. Chaib. She added that a news report on the outbreak has also just been published on the WHO website and that a press conference with the Coordinator of the WHO's group on cholera, Claire-Lise Chaignat, would be organized. (It was later announced that the briefing would be held at 10.30 a.m. on 27 October in Press Room 1.)
Marixie Mercado of the United Nations Children's Fund said safe drinking water and sanitation facilities had been inadequate or inexistent in Haiti even prior to the earthquake. Sanitation coverage had stood at only 17 per cent, half the rural population had practiced open defecation and total water coverage had been at just 63 per cent. Simple hygiene precautions, such as using soap when washing hands, were not familiar to many.
UNICEF and the Direction Nationale de l’Eau Potable et de l’Assainissement were leading in the response as co-chairs of the water, sanitation and hygiene cluster. Main elements of the response include public information, supplies and testing and purification of water sources. Support provided also include those needed for purifying water at home and at treatment plants – which includes 300,000 water purification tablets as well as a tonne of chlorine, supplies for household hygiene, including soap and jerry cans; and supplies for health facilities, ranging from antibiotics to tents to help manage the influx of patients. Assessments of water points is ongoing – over 150 water points have been tested so far, with over half, or 52 per cent, showing need for further chlorination. The UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti was helping to distribute chlorine to water distribution systems in severely affected areas. More details were available in the press release from the UNICEF Haiti country office.
Jean Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said IOM had been partnering with Digicel, Haiti’s largest cell phone carrier, to reach out to potential cholera victims. To date, messages had been sent to about 115,000 households, informing them about hand washing and safe food preparation. Radio, the must trusted media in Haiti, has also been used to inform people about hygiene measures to contain the epidemic. In addition, over 80 specialized IOM staff with hygiene training had been deployed for direct outreach to displaced persons in camps across the capital Port-au-Prince and IOM's Health and Wash Units traveled to Gonaives over the weekend to reinforce the capacity and resources of the teams there in responding to the epidemic.
Responding to a journalist’s question on the source of the cholera outbreak, Paul Garwood said this was not clear at this stage and the priority now was to put all efforts into treating people and prevent all further cases.
West and Central Africa
Elysabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the situation in West and Central Africa kept worsening as the number of flood-affected people had now risen to 1,835,432. As many as 1,605,877 persons were affected in West Africa and 220,000 in Central Africa, with a total of 397 people killed by the floods. The number of people affected in West Africa in 2010 showed an increase of 100 per cent compared to 2009, when 823,000 people had been affected and 195 killed. This increase could be explained through the much stronger rains and the lack of local logistics, among other reasons. Benin remained the country hardest hit by the floods, with over 700,000 persons affected. 200,000 people including 27,000 children in the So-Ava community had received food assistance.
Ms. Byrs underscored that greater financial resources were needed to respond to the situation in West Africa. OCHA would probably launch an appeal for Benin at the end of this week. The Central Emergency Response Fund would also contribute USD 4 million to assist flood victims.
Such floods inevitably always also contributed to the propagation of cholera, Ms. Byrs went on to say. Over 52,000 cases of cholera had been reported in Central and West Africa since June 2010, according to WHO figures. The Central Emergency Response Fund had allotted over USD 650,000 to Cameroon in order to fight cholera.
Fresh fighting displaces some 60,000 in Somalia
Andrej Mahecic of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said fierce clashes in the Somali town of Beled Hawo on the Kenyan border had driven some 60,000 Somalis out of their homes over the past week. At least ten people had been killed in the clashes between Al-Shabaab and Ahlu Sunna Wal Jamaa, a militia group allied to the transitional Somali government. Most of the displaced had fled to nearby villages and some had crossed into Kenya. Of the estimated 40,000 displaced within Somalia, most were living under trees without shelter, water, food or any sanitation facilities. To make matters worse, it had been raining for days, increasing the risk of an outbreak of disease.
Of those who had fled across the border to the northern Kenyan town of Mandera, many were renting houses or were hosted by the local community while waiting for fighting to die down before making a decision on whether to return home. UNHCR was particularly concerned about the worsening health and security conditions of thousands of others who had been camping out in the open at Border Point One since 17 October. The number of Somali refugees at this makeshift site had been increasing by the day and stood at 5,000 as of this morning. The refugees were predominately women, children and the elderly. UNHCR staff in Mandera said the health conditions at the site, which has no shelter or lavatories, were quickly deteriorating. The situation of the refugees was deplorable, Mr. Mahecic underscored.
Border Point One was only 500 metres from the Kenya-Somalia border and within range of fire if clashes resumed in Beled Hawo. Tensions were rising amid reports that Al-Shabaab was regrouping to launch an attack to retake the town. UNHCR was urging the Kenyan authorities to speed up relocation of new arrivals away so that people could be moved away from the border and into a reception centre where UNHCR and its partners could attend to their protection and assistance needs. UNHCR had already started registering the new arrivals and was coordinating the humanitarian response. Kenyan authorities and aid agencies were working together with UNHCR to deliver basic services and provide food, water, shelter, medicine and sanitation to the newly displaced. Through local partners UNHCR was assessing the situation inside Somalia and coordinating a response, security permitting. There were some 1.46 million internally displaced persons in Somalia.
UNHCR urges EU investment in asylum support for Greece
Andrej Mahecic said that it was announced Monday by the European Commission that the Greek Government had requested the deployment of Rapid Border Intervention Teams from FRONTEX, the European Union's Border Management Agency, to assist at the land border between Turkey and Greece.
UNHCR understood the difficult situation that Greece faced. The land border between Turkey and Greece had become the main entry point into the European Union for irregular migrants and asylum seekers. According to Greek government sources, several hundred people were now crossing this border on a daily basis. And the toll in human lives grew by the month. Of crossings at the Evros River UNHCR knew of forty-four drowning this year, while the actual number was believed higher. Of those who made it across, some were returned to Turkey under an arrangement between Turkey and Greece. The humanitarian situation on the Greek side of the border was critical, with large numbers of persons detained in extremely difficult conditions, said Mr. Mahecic.
While recognizing the imperative of controlling the European Union’s external border, UNHCR cautioned that asylum needs must not be overlooked. UNHCR urged the FRONTEX teams to make sure that any persons who were seeking international protection were identified and referred to the competent authorities. This was currently a particular challenge in Greece, as the asylum system did not function properly. Access to the procedure was difficult at best, and according to UNHCR's direct observation, the procedure itself did not succeed in identifying persons in need of protection. For these reasons, UNHCR had been working closely with the Greek authorities and European Union partners on the proposed reform of the asylum system. UNHCR welcomed the Greek Government's intention to reform its asylum procedure. However, this reform was not yet in place.
Mass immunization campaign against polio in Africa
Rod Curtis of the World Health Organization said this week Africa would be conducting a 15-country synchronized immunization campaign using oral polio vaccine with some 290,000 vaccinators going door-to-door to reach 72 million children under the age of 5. This would be the third immunization campaign of this size in Africa this year, following campaigns in March and April. The campaign was an ongoing example of the level of support WHO was enjoying from Governments across West Africa against polio. The efforts had very real results across West Africa, where only Liberia and Mali had recorded any cases in the past five months, while Nigeria – the only country in Africa never to have stopped polio transmission – had slashed cases by 98 per cent in the past year. However, there was an ongoing outbreak in Angola and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These two countries had recorded 48 of Africa’s 58 cases in the past six months. And in the past week a case had been seen in Liberia, a type 3 case in Mali, and a case in Uganda, which had been polio-free for more than a year.
Geneva Activities
Corinne Momal-Vanian said the Human Rights Committee would start this morning at 11 a.m. a public meeting to examine the situation reports submitted by two Committee Members tasked with following-up on the final observations regarding complaints. During the rest of the week the Committee primarily discussed the concluding observations on the reports considered during this session in closed meetings, before making the concluding observations public at the end of the session on Friday. On Friday there would also be a celebration to mark the 100th session of the Human Rights Committee, to be held in Room XIX of the Palais des Nations. Meeting next week would be the Committee Against Torture and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Information Service had sent French and English versions of a fact sheet on the Côte d’Ivoire presidential elections this morning to journalists. The first round of presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire was scheduled to take place on 31 October 2010 and the national institution in charge of organizing and conducting the elections was the Independent Electoral Commission of Côte d’Ivoire. The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), the peacekeeping mission deployed there since 2004, was providing technical, logistical and security support to the Government of Côte d’Ivoire and the Independent Electoral Commission for what would be the first presidential elections in the country in a decade.
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of UNOCI, Mr. Choi, was mandated by UN Security Council Resolution 1765 to certify that all stages of the electoral process provided all necessary guarantees for the holding of the elections. Speaking to reporters yesterday, Mr. Choi said he was convinced that the presidential elections would be held as scheduled on 31 October. Mr. Choi added that the provisional results would first be announced by the Independent Electoral Commission on 3 November while the final results would be announced by the Constitutional Council on 10 November. More information and details of persons to be contacted for further information was available in the fact sheet sent out this morning.
Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Department of Public Information in New York had started a series of discussion forums between representatives of Member States and staff from the UN Secretariat. Discussions would be available on webcast and journalists had the opportunity to send questions in advance by email. The first discussion would be held today in New York, at 7.15 p.m. Geneva time. The discussion focused on Sudan and included as panelists Mr. Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, the Permanent Representative of Sudan to the United Nations at New York, Mr. Francis Deng, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide and Jack Christofides, Team Leader of the Sudan Integrated Operational Team, Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
UNCTAD Agenda
Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development reminded that a press conference would be given by Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD, and Cheick Sidi Diarra, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, tomorrow at 12 p.m. in Room III. The speakers would talk about the preparation process for the LDC-IV conference, organized by the United Nations for May 2011 in Turkey.
Mr. Sibut-Pinote also reminded that a three-day meeting aimed at examining how to ensure inclusive and sustainable development, notably by fostering the production and exportation capacities of Least Developed Countries, would start tomorrow morning. Journalists would this afternoon receive the programme and the documents for this meeting and a press release would be available at the press conference.
Ms. Sibut-Pinote said that the G20 countries had asked the OECD, the World Trade Organization and UNCTAD to monitor the political measures taken by the Governments of G20 countries in terms of investment and trade, particularly with regards to their potentially protectionist character. The next joint report would be published on 4 November, but was embargoed until 3 p.m. Geneva time, Ms. Sibut-Pinote said. She added that a press conference would be held on 4 November, to be confirmed shortly.