Period covered by this operations update: 16 August to 15 November 2012 Appeal target (current): CHF 758,416 Appeal coverage: 82 per cent Appeal history
3 April 2012: This emergency appeal was launched for CHF 758,416 to assist 752,255 beneficiaries, including 196,200 direct beneficiaries, for nine months.
Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF): CHF 100,000 was initially allocated to support the initial response of the national society to the emergency.
Summary
Viet Nam has experienced unprecedented increase in cases of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) since 2011. There have been two peaks in HFMD during 2012. The first one occurred between March and July, with the weekly caseload reaching its peak in the 16 th week (from 15 to 21 April) with more than 4,000 new cases of infection in that week alone. The second started in August, with the highest weekly caseload in the 38 th week, reaching more than 6,000 cases – the highest weekly caseload between January 2012 to 4 November 2012.
From April to September 2012, Viet Nam Red Cross (VNRC) has focused on prioritized interventions covering 292 communes in 20 districts in eight selected provinces. Activities implemented during this period include project orientation in provinces, selection of in-community volunteers, provision of refresher training for active trainers, and promoting behaviour change through house-to-house visits to the families of children under five years old, and public awareness raising campaigns.
Up to 15 November 2012, multilateral donors have contributed to cover 82 per cent of the appeal. IFRC would like to thank Canadian Red Cross, Danish Red Cross/Danish government, European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (DG ECHO), Hong Kong branch of Red Cross Society of China, Japanese Red CrossSociety, Red Cross of Monaco, Singapore Red Cross and Swedish Red Cross for their contribution to the appeal and thus, have enabled timely response.
In the remaining period of the operation, IFRC continues to support VNRC in the implementation of planned activities in accordance with 82 per cent of the total appealed budget. All of the field activities, particularly behaviour change communication (BCC), will be finalized by the end of December 2012 as planned. To enable VNRC to properly carry out end-line surveys and operational evaluation, as well as to allow VNRC to train an additional number of trainers on epidemic control (using the adapted epidemic control for volunteers’ toolkit) for possible future outbreaks, a month-long extension has been sought.
During the past few months, VNRC has observed an increase in HFMD cases in non-target districts among the eight provinces under this operation. In addition, the situation of HFMD in Ba Ria – Vung Tau, one of the 13 priority provinces, has become a matter of concern considering marked increases in both HFMD cases and deaths reported. Therefore, since September, VNRC has quickly provided training of volunteers and rolled out behaviour change communication (BCC) activities to target populations in 130 communes in 11 districts, including four new districts in Ba Ria-Vung Tau. Up to November, the VNRC operation covers 31 districts in nine provinces including An Giang, Dong Thap, Long An, Soc Trang, Vinh Long, Ben Tre, Da Nang and Quang Ngai, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau.