Project Concern International
A young child receives needed medical care from a physician through the India Flood Relief Program.
Bihar, India’s poorest state, suffers high rates of contagious diseases. Cramped conditions and flood-polluted water caused by regular flooding have made existing health problems much worse. Geographically susceptible to flooding, the state of Bihar, which includes the intersection of Northern India’s three most powerful rivers—the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghana—and is often hard hit by monsoons.
AmeriCares India regularly sends hygiene items to help stop the spread of disease, as well as medicines to treat infections and pain from storm-related injuries and treat illness from drinking contaminated water. These life-saving donations from local Indian pharmaceutical companies and include anti-diahhreals, anti-anemia, anti-dysentery, and anti-infectives (antibiotics).
According to the ministry of home affairs, the 2007 floods killed an estimated 545 people were killed and affected approximately 21 million people. Within the first few weeks of the massive flooding, AmeriCares began providing water purification tablets and medicines to combat dengue fever, a serious flood-related disease. We also sent supplies to stave off water borne diseases that can contribute to the rapid spread of diarrheal disease, measles, malaria and hypothermia in infants.
When Kosi River levees broke in the summer of 2008, three million people were displaced by further flooding. In response, AmeriCares continues to work with our local health care and pharmaceutical partners in India to deliver medicines, medical supplies, nutritional supplements and hygiene items to help the people in the flood-affected communities. Supplements address the food shortage and restore important nutrients such as Iron and B12—without which young children can develop severe developmental disabilities.