The Round-up offers a weekly sample of what our sister Red Cross Societies are working on around the world.
MADAGASCAR: With more heavy rains expected this week, the Malagasy Red Cross Society has 
teams and materials positioned and ready to respond to growing needs following already extensive flooding which has left thousands homeless. The Malagasy Red Cross Society has deployed volunteer teams to the affected sites, where they have built 80 emergency shelters in Grand Tana, using prepositioned stocks by the Indian Ocean Platform for Regional Intervention (PIROI). Teams are involved in conducting damage assessments and sharing messages with communities to ensure they remain on alert for the possibility of further flooding and the need for evacuation. To date, PIROI has delivered 57 tonnes of emergency supplies from warehouses in Antananarivo and Reunion to support the Malagasy Red Cross Society in responding to the crisis. Given the damage done to water points, responders are particularly concerned about the outbreak of water-borne diseases. Red Cross teams are assisting in delivering potable water and conducting hygiene promotion sessions with those living in temporary sites.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Ongoing conflict in the Central African Republic, which has rendered close to 850,000 people homeless, has also damaged the country’s health system, making it harder to combat malaria, a very preventable and treatable disease. At the Malimaka health facility in Bangui, health care staff are seeing patients from as far as 13 kilometres away, with most of the consultations being malaria-related. In December 2014, IFRC, in partnership with the Central African Red Cross Society and the Ministry of Health, commenced the mass campaign distribution of lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets (LLINs). To date, 661,300 mosquito nets have been handed out in 11 sub prefectures, exceeding the planned implementation rate. Given the context in the country and the fact that not all sub prefectures may be accessible for security reasons, IFRC has also been providing over 70,000 LLINs to partners for targeted distribution to pregnant women and children under five years of age.