United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes says relief efforts in Haiti are off to a good start, but they require sustained international support.

 

Speaking two weeks after the magnitude 7 earthquake devastated the island nation's capital Port-au-Prince, Holmes ran through a checklist of emergency needs as efforts on the ground shifted from search and rescue to housing and feeding about 200,000 displaced and homeless people. 

 

The U.N. official focused on the priorities of maintaining the logistics of supplying food and water.

 

[John Holmes, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator]:

"On the main categories of need, on the water side, I think we are making progress. As I said before, I think there are still issues there, particularly outside Port-au-Prince, but the water situation is less acute than it was before. I think most people have got some access to water and we are increasing the coverage that we are able to give, so that is less critical. Although I don't want to give the impression that it's at all solved."

 

Another concern for the relief effort is the maintenance of medical supplies, as coverage moves from emergency surgery to post-operative treatment. 

 

[John Holmes, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator]:

"Another related issue there we need to focus a lot on is sanitation, and of course sanitation and hygiene, because otherwise the risk of disease is there. And by the way, on the disease front, there's no sign of any epidemics at the moment, though the surveillance of that is continuing very intensively."

 

Before finishing, Holmes reiterated his request for tents and shelter materials, to provide temporary housing to resettle the victims in the near term.

 

[John Holmes, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator]:

"It's not something we can rush into, because we'll have to live with the consequences of getting the camps wrong in terms of structures and locations and management, but we want to start that process more systematically as soon as we possibly can. So shelter is a major priority for us."

 

Holmes says the next step for the coordinated effort will be to re-assess the situation, and determine where victims have migrated and how that impacts the distribution of supplies. Then the U.N. can amend its flash appeal to donor countries next month.