Reinforcement of the response to cholera outbreaks in all Departments mainly in those considered high priority and support to the national coordination for cholera response in the Ministry of Health Overall project description 14-UF-IOM-006 (Health); this is a joint project with 14-UF-OPS-001 and 14-UF-WHO-008

The project’s objective is to ensure a timely and effective multisectorial response to cholera outbreaks to contribute to the reduction of the cholera-associated mortality and morbidity in all departments mainly in those considered as priorities.

The total number of people targeted with CERF funding is 45,000.

With CERF funds, the agency will:
-Ensure the timely detection of new outbreaks, the identification of gaps and needs, and the dispatch of the response based on needs
-Form and deploy 15 multi-sectorial mobiles teams to ensure quick response to cholera alerts in Northeast, Northwest, North, Center, West, Southeast, Nippes, South and Grande Anse departments.
-Ensure the collection of epidemiological data on new cholera cases detected in the response of alerts and the verification of those cases using rapid tests 
-Cooperate with MSPP in the establishment of early warning and response system at central and department level
-Provide logistical support and essential medicines, health and WASH supplies to medical mobile teams for the first response
-Train new health staff on data collection, cholera treatment protocols, corpse management and management of medical supplies
-Include sensitisation campaigns at community level as part of the response to alerts

Total project requirements: USD $ 1,763,716
Current funding level:	         USD $0
Recommended to the ERC for approval:  USD $587,403

The CERF project will support the strategy of immediate response to cholera outbreaks through the deployment of 19 mobile medical response teams at the departmental level, working jointly with the WASH mobile teams, to provide a comprehensive response to all cholera alerts. IOM will run two mobile teams in North Artibonite and to cover IDPs camps in the metropolitan area of Port au Prince. Given the human resource-focus of cholera response activities, requiring medical staff and community health workers, IOM’s project includes 13 people to be employed monthly as part of each mobile team. IOM will hire staff directly for one team and the other team will be contracted out to the MSPP/Health Centers and Department Health office. This project further needs a program manager to support, manage and provide technical guidance – a position that is necessary in order to run this project. The core national staff provide the administrative and financial components to run any type of project, again being difficult to have such a project without such staff. As the project requires medical staffing for response, CERF is funding more staff than the normal 10% of the Total Project Direct Costs and supporting 24% of the requirement. The precedent was set when CERF approved the staff budgeting of 13-UF-IOM-024 for Haiti cholera treatment at 62% TPDC during the 2013 UF second round.

Recommendation:  The CERF Programme Unit believes the projects adheres to the CERF Life-Saving Criteria and recommends it for funding.