YOU CAN HELP NOW.
SUPPORT THIS URGENT HEALTH APPEAL.
Madagascar faces an unprecedented, catastrophic, situation as the Coronavirus COVID-19 has reached the island. The country has locked down and all public transport has been halted. This is not enough to stop the spread of infection.
The population is malnourished, has no effective food or cash reserves beyond a few days, and has both extremely densely populated cities and entirely unsupported rural communities.
We have to act NOW to arrest transmission of the virus and educate communities across the country. Madagascar is highly vulnerable and is already struggling to get health protection messages out. HoverAid’s team is on the front line and we need your support and help today.
Just £25 could buy soap and food supplements for a family of eight for two weeks. £100 could pay for fuel to reach one village.
We have special permission from the Malagasy government for one of our vehicles to travel on all roads across Madagscar, and we will be working with the Lutheran Church Health NGO, SALFA on a combined effort to achieve three aims:
- Teaching people to wash their hands: regularly and effectively, and explaining why so that superstition and mis-information are countered.
- Distribution of soap: for most people in the country soap is an expensive item used sparingly, however now it is an absolute necessity that communities have access to it so that hand-washing can be done regularly and effectively.
- Distribution of food supplements: in particular Spirulina. This is a locally sourced extremely rich nutrient supplement and raising the level of immune systems prior to infection has been judged to be a priority to protect the vulnerable.
Madagascar is still reeling from widepsread floods in the north of the country affecting tens of thousands of people which we have been responding to, distributing food, building materials, tools and seeds. The Coronavirus COVID-19 will affect millions.
A high proportion of Madagascar’s population is chronically malnourished, in the remote areas we work the vast majority of people are exposed to Malaria and Bilharzia on a regular basis and their immune systems are consequently continually under attack. Poor sanitation conditions and unclean water supplies compound this. Furthermore there is very little effective communication between the central government and remote subsistence based communities. Despite their isolation these remote communities are at huge risk as there is little understanding of virus transmission, and people will continue to travel to and from communities on foot and by Ox-cart, bringing the virus from community to community in a deadly progression.
We need to get ahead of this spread as quickly as possible.
So – what can you do in order for us to help?
Please, when you think or pray for those in your local community remember those in Madagascar. We really are all in this together. We have the NHS, good communication, and a highly educated population. Madagascar has none of these things. The annual health budget per person in Madagascar is £44, and this is almost entirely in the capital city Antananarivo and the few regional centres.
We asked for your support in February and we raised over £30,000 for flood relief.
Our initial estimate is that we need to raise another £30,000 in the next 10 days to be able to respond as effectively as we can to COVID-19. We have a medical team, hovercraft and 4×4 vehicles, community health teachers, logisticians, and
You can get involved by supporting our appeal. Please give what you can today.
https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/12512
Please share this appeal with your networks and look out for our updates.
