Sudan (Southern Sudan) - On 10 April 2008, a two-person Medair Health Services Emergency Response Team (ERT) began working actively in Yei and surrounding villages, after receiving a request for assistance from another NGO.

Cholera has become an endemic problem within Yei town, present throughout all of 2008, and now rising primarily because of the onset of rains. A total of 118 cases of cholera or acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) were seen in the Yei Civil Hospital from 12 March to 5 April, prompting Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) to request emergency assistance.

Across Southern Sudan, cases of cholera are on the rise in the last two years, stemming from sharp increases in the population, as people return from being displaced and find few essential services such as safe drinking water or proper sanitation.

The Cholera Prevention and Preparedness Group (CPPG) was established in 2007, comprising representatives from the government, U.N. agencies, and NGOs like Medair. The CPPG is a coordinated effort to share resources in order to achieve the common goal of decreasing cholera cases in high-risk areas of Southern Sudan, by focusing on five key prevention strategies: hygiene promotion, sanitation, chlorination, improved water supply, and an advocacy plan.

In Yei, Medair worked closely with CPPG members NPA and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), conducting active case-finding, mapping and supporting the surveillance system of cholera cases in the outlying areas. The team also provided health and hygiene promotion (HHP) to help prevent future outbreaks from occurring.

Just one month earlier, Medair had sent a Water and Sanitation (WatSan) ERT to Yei, upon receiving word from CPPG that there was an urgent need for safe drinking water in the town. The WatSan team rapidly established a Surface Water Treatment (SWAT) system and provided corresponding training, so that the 9,000 people of Mahad in Yei town gained access to at least five litres of clean water per person per day. When the Health Services ERT arrived in Yei, they found that the SWAT was working well, and many households were using the facility.

Medair's Health and WatSan ERTs have the flexibility and the expertise to provide tailored short-term solutions in all ten states across Southern Sudan. Since 2001, the teams have conducted rapid needs assessments, built local capacity, and responded to nutritional emergencies and disease outbreaks, like these responses in Yei.

"The Yei cholera intervention was a really positive experience," said Anna Perry, Medair Health Manager. "There are a lot of partners on ground to work with, although many of them are quite stretched. We were able to jump in and help with this emergency by doing case finding and surveillance, and we were really pleasantly surprised to find that cases were decreasing."

The Medair Health ERT departed Yei on 22 April, leaving several CPPG partners present on the ground, actively providing monitoring, case management, and HHP. With its latest mission successfully completed, Medair's ERTs remain ready to further assist in Yei, or wherever else they are needed across the recovering region of Southern Sudan.

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Medair is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO), with its operational headquarters located in Switzerland. Its Relief & Rehabilitation programmes in Southern Sudan have been running since 1992.

In Southern Sudan, Medair provides emergency medical and water assistance for outbreaks, large people movements, and nutritional emergencies in a number of locations across the region as well as improving access to primary health care and safe water sources in Upper Nile. In the northern states, Medair provides access to primary health care and water and sanitation for up to 210,000 conflict-affected persons in West Darfur; works with war-displaced people in Khartoum; and supports access to primary health care in the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan.

Medair's work in Southern Sudan is currently supported with the assistance of UNICEF, DFID (British Government), BUZA (Dutch Government), SDC/DDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation), The Humanitarian Aid Department of the European Commission (ECHO), ERF (Emergency Response Fund/UNDP administrated by OCHA) and the United Nation 'Common Humanitarian Fund for Sudan.'

Medair's life-saving activities are also dependent upon private financial support. To contribute to this work, please visit www.medair.org (Southern Sudan section.)