The Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC), which recently became the first fully-fledged National Society member of the International Federation’s humanitarian pandemic-preparedness initiative for influenza, or “H2P”, has begun its fieldwork for the project.
The ERC is using 127 specially trained volunteers to carry out an extensive “vulnerability and capacity” survey to create a picture of a population more than half a million strong in two of Egypt’s governorates.
“The ERC has been involved in preventive measures against avian flu since the first cases were reported in 2006, in cooperation with the governmental authorities, UN agencies and others,” said Professor Mamdouh Gabr, ERC secretary general.
“From the beginning of this year, we have been looking forward to working on human pandemic-preparedness, and the whole National Society was very pleased when this was finalized in June by joining H2P with the International Federation.”
Pierre Duplessis, the Federation’s special envoy on avian and human influenza, welcomed Egypt to the programme: “We’re very happy to have the Egyptian Red Crescent formally on-board, and we look forward to working with other National Societies in the near future.”
H2P, a major three-year programme funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), aims to strengthen pandemic response in households and communities in three key areas: health, food security and livelihoods.
The major focus is health, using “non-pharmaceutical interventions” that have health information at their core, through training and communications.
It includes assistance with service continuity for National Societies whose own volunteers and staff may fall ill in a pandemic, and is being coordinated from the International Federation’s health and care department.
Wealth of information
The ERC has spent the last few weeks preparing the hand-picked volunteers, writing detailed questionnaires for both families and communities, and agreeing a modus operandi with its local NGO partners – Egypt’s “community development associations” (CDA).
Last week, ERC volunteers began collecting data from families in predominantly urban Nahda, a new town that was expanded to rehouse thousands of families who survived the 1992 earthquake, and Qalyoub, an agricultural centre north of Cairo, near the main railway line to Alexandria.
The multiple-choice family questionnaire, being filled in by volunteers during interviews with residents, will generate a wealth of information, including people’s educational and employment status, their water and energy sources, access to health care, vegetable plots, domestic-storage capacity, practical skills, and more.
The community questionnaire, meanwhile, will enable the Red Crescent and the CDA to map resources like wells (a possible alternative to the normal piped water supply) and privately owned livestock.
This would all be vital, potentially life-saving information during an actual pandemic, and assist the ERC in providing support in the key H2P areas.
“Nahda and Qalyoub could be models for the rest of the country,” says ERC project director Alaadin Morsy, an experienced public-health professional.
The Red Crescent’s H2P work is being closely coordinated with the government, Morsy emphasizes, “and a framework is being worked out to include the media, as they would be crucial is getting the right messages across during a pandemic.”
Nabil Elsaban, H2P training and communications coordinator, says the hope is that by the end of the project “small communities will be able to carry on being resilient by themselves”.
Mortality rate
H2P arose from the International Federation’s 2006 global appeal for avian and human influenza, but is now separate from it. In Egypt, the National Society’s avian influenza work also continues nationwide.
Egypt is one of five countries that have suffered human cases of avian influenza this year, but it has had one of the lowest mortality rates overall. Three Egyptians out of the seven who caught bird flu in 2008 died.
In the history of the current H5N1 outbreak in people, Egypt is the third worst-affected country after Indonesia and Vietnam, suffering 50 cases of which 22 were fatal – a death rate well below the average 60 per cent for H5N1 in humans.
The bird-flu death-rate for children under ten in Egypt is zero, according to official figures.
Avian influenza is now “substantially under control,” says Dr Magda el-Sherbiny, the ERC’s director of health.
Of all the hundreds of strains of avian-influenza “A” virus, only four – including H5N1 – are known to have caused disease in humans, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
But experts say that every time a person catches H5N1 from a bird the chance exists of it mutating into one that spreads easily from human to human – the precursor of pandemic.
Alert-level three
Duplessis, a former secretary general of the Canadian Red Cross, cautions that “we must be careful not to spread alarm – still less panic, but there are practical measures all communities can and should take that will save many, many lives if a pandemic arrives for real.
“There’s nothing to stop us planning and practising them now, and thanks to this programme, in these parts of the world, we can.”
Among other countries it’s hoped will join the programme soon are Ethiopia, Mali and Nepal, as well as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Rwanda, Uganda and Vietnam. A further ten National Societies intend to join in 2009.
Up to 14 National Societies are expected to join in 2009.
The world is now on the third of WHO’s six levels of pandemic alert, indicating that a virus caught from animals is causing influenza in people but is not spreading among humans in a sustainable way.
H2P takes the International Federation back to its historical roots: its predecessor, the League, was formed in May 1919, within a few months of the peak death-rate of the1918–9 influenza pandemic that many historians believe claimed 20–40 million lives, making it one of the most deadly events in history.
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Dr Aida Nagy, Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC) H2P field manager for Nahda, near Cairo. The ERC, which recently became the first fully-fledged National Society member of the International Federation’s humanitarian pandemic-preparedness programme for influenza, began its fieldwork for the project in late August. (p18152)
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A Qalyoub shepherd tends his flock. An Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC) community questionnaire on H2P will enable it to help map community resources like wells (a possible alternative to the normal piped supply in a real pandemic) and privately owned livestock. (p18147)
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Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC) volunteer Intisaar Muhammad (right) fills in a “vulnerability and capacity” questionnaire with Nahda resident Saadiya Hussein. The ERC, which recently became the first fully-fledged National Society member of the International Federation’s humanitarian pandemic-preparedness programme for influenza, began its fieldwork for the project in July. (p18151)
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A young girl at an Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC) day centre in Cairo. The ERC healthy lifestyle course for children now routinely includes key messages about avian and human influenza. H2P arose from the International Federation’s 2006 global appeal for avian and human influenza, but is now separate from it. (p18153)
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A rooftop chicken-coop in Qalyoub, north of Cairo – but the child is in no danger: as well as being caged, the bird has been vaccinated against avian influenza. H2P arose from the International Federation’s 2006 global appeal for avian and human influenza, but is now separate from it. (p18143)
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