HHS Emergency Response in Haiti: Summary Report, Feb. 5

The HHS medical teams have reported seeing more than 26,100 patients so far, including approximately 390 yesterday, Feb. 4.
Since they began seeing patients Jan. 17, HHS medical teams have performed 111 surgeries and delivered 31 babies.
HHS currently has approximately 275 people deployed in Haiti to support relief efforts.
- The International Medical Surgical Response Team continues to provide patient care using temporary medical stations set up in a soccer field near a GHESKIO clinic in Port-au-Prince.
- Disaster Medical Assistance Team members are providing primary care at the U.S. embassy and medical support for the recovery team at Hotel Montana.
- The teams report seeing patients with chronic disease or who need basic care indicating that the medical need is returning to routine care rather than emergency care.
The U.S. government is working to recover, identify and repatriate the remains of U.S. citizens who perished in the earthquake.
- A specially trained HHS Family Assistance Center (FAC) Team is working with the U.S. Dept of State and families of U.S. citizens to gather information that will help identify the remains of Americans who died in the earthquake so they can be returned to their families.
- HHS has provided a disaster portable morgue unit at the Port-au-Prince airport, staffed with mortuary and forensic specialists who will work with the U.S. Dept. of State and U.S. Dept. of Defense to identify remains of U.S. citizens who died in the earthquake.
Pubic health experts from the HHS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with the Haitian Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization on public health assessment teams to identify health threats.
- CDC is working with the Haiti National Laboratory to reconstruct the lab and maintain contact with more than 50 sentinel sites, collating and entering data, analyzing and reporting.
- CDC staff members in Haiti are working with the public health assessment teams that are mapping health threats Haiti now faces, so that donated resources can be directed to areas where they can be used most effectively.
HHS has activated two Federal Coordinating Centers (FCCs) in Atlanta and Tampa as part of the National Disaster Medical System. These two centers are staffed by teams from the Department of Veterans Affairs who will meet NDMS medical evacuation flights from Haiti and arrange ground transport to place patients at appropriate hospitals. Federal Coordinating Centers in New York, NY; Lyons, NJ; Philadelphia, PA; Washington, DC; and Boston, MA are put on alert in case additional capacity is needed to treat patients from Haiti who have life-threatening conditions. Additional information can be found by visiting our Web site.
Approximately 21,406 American citizens have returned to the U.S. from Haiti as of midnight February 5. Of these, approximately 7,033 received Administration for Children and Families (ACF)-funded services assistance, such as medical attention, food, short-term lodging, transportation or logistics for their onward flights in the United States. These services were coordinated by the state emergency repatriation team.
Unaccompanied children coming from Haiti who have been matched with an adoptive family but who do not yet have legal guardians are placed in the custody of the Federal government, and are the responsibility of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). As of Feb. 4 at 9:00 a.m., approximately 372 unaccompanied Haitian children have been put under the care of ORR. Of these, 312 were released to sponsors and 60 unaccompanied Haitian children are being cared for at ORR-designated facilities. Sponsors are typically prospective adoptive parents who had already begun the process to adopt the child.