Healthcare for refugee families from Syria, Ecuador and Haiti focus the attention of Laboratorios Viñas and Farmamundi in 2016
For the ninth year running, Laboratorios Viñas, one of Farmamundi’s greatest allies in its Emergencies Fund, made a major economic contribution that has been used to implement several emergency interventions in Syria, Ecuador, Haiti, El Salvador, Peru, Kenya, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gaza and Serbia, to the benefit of 80,985 people. The interventions placed the focus on health and food aid for the most vulnerable population, particularly refugees, women and children.
Laboratorios Viñas and Farmamundi have a cooperation agreement which has been reinforced in recent years and provides for immediate action in case of disaster, conflicts and situations of chronic health imbalance.
Refugees in Syria, the earthquake in Ecuador and Hurricane Matthew underpinned actions in 2016
After more than six years of armed conflict, food and health aid to refugee families in Syria and Serbia continue to be a priority for Farmamundi. Together with the Jafra local NGO (Foundation for Relief and Youth Development), food, medicines and hygiene kits were distributed to some 8,000 people in the camp of Khan Eshieh, in a rural area near Damascus after summer. Due to this camp’s situation of insecurity and isolation, the refugee population has to face major risks to get to Zakia or Damascus and procure basic-need articles and food.
Farmamundi and Laboratorios Viñas also provided assistance in the post-emergency period of the 7.8-degree earthquake that hit the northern area of Ecuador, destroying infrastructures, houses and crops. The Emergency Fund provided urgent healthcare and supplied drinking water to 1,500 families from the hardest-hit areas in the provinces of Manabi and Esmeraldas.
Also in Haiti, an emergency healthcare intervention was implemented for the population affected by Hurricane Matthew with the support of the Movimiento Socio-Cultural para los Trabajadores Haitianos (MOSCTHA) NGO by means of the delivery of food kits, bottled water, hygiene kits, basic medicines and healthcare with a mobile unit for more than 2500 people.
In Gaza, coinciding with Ramadan, baby milk, sugar, rice, oil, jam, lentils and other basic-need products were supplied to displaced families on the Gaza Strip with the support of the Palestine NGO Labour Resources Center (LRC). All this with the purpose of alleviating the stifling situation affecting the population in the area of Shejayeh, with a constantly receding socio-economic situation due to the economic blockade implemented by Israel since 2007.
Finally, mention must be made of the emergency aid provided on account of the Zika, chikungunya and dengue diseases in the municipality of Mejicanos, in the Department of San Salvador (El Salvador), and the healthcare intervention on the affected population in Peru by the earthquake in the districts of Ichumpa, Achoma, Yanque and Coporaque in the Arequipa region.
In the heart of Africa, healthcare was also provided to the urban refugee population in Nairobi (Kenya) following the reactivation of the cholera epidemic, and an intervention was carried out to reduce health vulnerability in the face of a health threat in Mali, working stably and directly with 15 Community Health Centres and the population of the different Health Areas of the Kayes Region. And in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country where Farmamundi has been working stably for more than a decade now, through two actions, one of which is the prevention of sexual violence and the improvement of medical and psychological care to the victims. Another action is intended to reinforce the health system in Nord Kivu and to supply fourteen health structures in the area of Oicha with generic and specific medicines, perishable health material and kits for medical aid to the victims of the emergency in the wake of the escalation of the armed conflict in the area.
In 2017, and due to the situation of urgent need, priority is being given to healthcare and food aid to refugee families in the Shalila and Burj El-Barajneh camps in the Lebanon and to the refugee and forced-migration population in different border areas of Serbia with Bulgaria, Hungary and Croatia, among other interventions.