(PORTLAND, ORE. - June 6, 2007) When Missouri physician Jon Bird begin treating hundreds of patients camped in the humanitarian aid settlements of West Darfur, he was struck by two ever present realities: the arid and seemingly lifeless countryside and the haunted, hopeless eyes of the people looking to him for care.
Dr. Bird, a volunteer with Medical Teams International and one of 13,000 aid workers delivering relief in Darfur, is among only a half dozen Americans working in the region. A veteran of more than 15 trips to disaster sites including Uganda, Kenya, Sumatra, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, Dr. Bird recently spent four weeks in Darfur treating displaced families and teaching Sudanese healthcare workers updated medical procedures.
"Once the word got out that medical help had arrived, everybody in the camps showed up," explains Bird. "We saw malnutrition, infectious and tropical diseases, war related injuries, malaria. The conditions were comparable to what I encountered in Uganda. But what I wasn't prepared for went beyond the physical. There was such despair...the people had lost hope."
According to statistics released by InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S. based aid groups, the relief operations in Darfur are now the largest in the world. And statistics provided by the organization show that aid efforts are making an impact: since 2004, the incidence of acute malnutrition in Darfur has fallen from 22% to 13%. The daily mortality rate has declined by 50%.
"We know that our volunteers and medicines are making a lifesaving difference," says Bas Vanderzalm, president of Medical Teams International. "We'll continue to respond to this catastrophic situation by providing care to displaced families and equipping local Sudanese health workers to treat injuries and illnesses in their own communities."
Medical Teams International has been working in Sudan since 2004 with the Global Relief Alliance, a collaboration of humanitarian aid organizations providing food, medical care, clean water, shelter, and sanitation assistance to 90,000 displaced Sudanese people.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
