SANTA MONICA, CA, June 29, 2005 - International Medical Corps (IMC) has received a one-year grant of $537,228 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide residents of eastern Chad with vital medical and health care services that have been catastrophically strained by vast influxes of refugees from neighboring Sudan. Since late 2003, more than 213,000 people have fled fighting and human atrocities in the Darfur region of western Sudan and taken refuge in the deserts of eastern Chad.
This sudden and vast population influx into Chad, combined with rainfall deficits, crop losses and a preexisting dearth of health care services, has taxed the area's resources to the point that local Chadians have been suffering as much as the Sudanese refugees. Chadians, however, do not have access to most of the services earmarked for the refugees. A growing number of Chadians have even begun posing as refugees, desperate to gain access to humanitarian assistance. And, as competition for resources increases, tensions are mounting between host and refugee populations.
According to Nancy Aossey, President and CEO of IMC, the Gates grant targets a seriously overlooked population in the Darfur crisis. "While the eyes of the humanitarian world have been focused on the tremendous needs of the Sudanese refugees, the host population has been suffering. The Chadians, who didn't have much to begin with, found themselves without access to critical health services. With the help of the Gates Foundation, IMC is beginning to rectify this inequity so that both the Chadians and the Sudanese refugees receive the health care they need and deserve," she said.
It is estimated that 80% of Chad's population lives below the poverty line. Chad also possesses some of the worst health indicators among developing countries, with an overall infant mortality rate of 94.78 deaths per 1,000 live births, and a maternal mortality rate among the highest in the world.
The grant from the Gates Foundation enables IMC to mobilize health clinics to serve the health care needs of 20,000 Chadians living near the refugee camps along the eastern border. Maternal and child health care services will be a primary focus of IMC's mobile clinic program, with the goal to improve pre-natal and early childhood health. IMC will also offer education on hygiene, nutrition, prenatal health, infant care and breast feeding. IMC clinics will also provide childhood vaccinations and health tracking services.
"By increasing access to critical health services, International Medical Corps will help improve the lives of tens of thousands of people in Chad. We're very pleased to support this essential work," said Suzanne Cluett, Associate Director for Global Health Strategies at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In addition, IMC will address three critical needs at Guereda District Hospital in Eastern Chad: insufficient medical equipment, supplies and medication; inadequately trained hospital health professionals; and deteriorating physical facilities. These improvements are designed to improve quality of care while building local health care capacity.
International Medical Corps, www.imcworldwide.org, is a global humanitarian nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives, relieving suffering, and restoring livelihoods. It operates in 20 countries worldwide, focusing on the worst "hot zones" in the world - where few organizations dare to serve.
For more information, contact Tim Smith at 310-826-7800 or 310-291-6714.