Direct Relief Commits $250,000, Opens Medical Inventory in Response to Hurricane Melissa

Direct Relief today committed an initial $250,000 in financial support and offered up its entire medical inventory to health providers in the Caribbean in response to Hurricane Melissa.

The Category 5 storm is churning through the Caribbean, with Jamaica and Cuba bracing for impact. Melissa's ongoing threats include more than two feet of rain, dangerous storm surge, and wind speeds of more than 150 miles per hour. The storm has already inundated areas of Haiti and the Dominican Republic with deadly flooding and landslides.

Emergency Shipments En Route, Building on Long-Term Support

Direct Relief has extensive and long-lived partnerships in the Caribbean, with operational activity occurring on an ongoing basis, making the organization strongly positioned to scale up during disasters.

Over the past five years, Direct Relief has shipped more than 75 tons of medical aid to Jamaica, and recent shipments to the country included insulin and specialty respiratory medications.

Additional medical support is currently being prepared for shipment, including field medic packs to equip first responders with medical essentials and personal care products for displaced people.

Direct Relief has also invested in the country's resilient power infrastructure, with $1.8 million in cash support going towards emergency preparedness projects to provide solar backup power for medical warehouses, generators to equip health centers on the island, and a primary healthcare mobile unit.

Medicines Currently Staged Throughout the Caribbean

Because hurricanes can cause extensive infrastructure damage to ports and roadways, leaving communities cut off for extended periods of time, Direct Relief operates an extensive hurricane preparedness program. The organization pre-positions caches of medicines and supplies in storm-prone communities, each containing enough medical aid to treat 3,000 people for one month, with the goal of equipping health providers on the ground until regional supply chains can be re-established.

There are currently six Direct Relief hurricane preparedness packs staged regionally for use in Hurricane Melissa-impacted areas: one in Haiti, one in the Dominican Republic, and two in Panama. Additional medical support staged in Panama with the Pan American Health Organization (the World Health Organization's regional office in the Americas) is also ready for deployment if needed by regional health facilities.

Past Responses Build Trust, Strengthen Hurricane Melissa Efforts

Direct Relief has extensive experience responding to hurricanes in the region, including Hurricane Maria, which experienced widespread and long-lasting power outages long after the storm ended. The organization funneled more than $75 million in financial support and medical aid to strengthen Puerto Rico's health system, and also provided resilient energy for much of the island's critical healthcare infrastructure.

The organization also maintains key relationships with regional partners, including the Office of Eastern Caribbean States, which represents 12 islands in the eastern Caribbean. Direct Relief is also coordinating with the Pan American Health Organization, which has coordinated shipments of medical aid into Cuba and other countries in the region.

Direct Relief is ready to respond as Melissa's impacts, and the region's medical needs after the storm, become clearer.