HOPE In The News

2021

September

• • • • • COVID 19: Africa’s End of Year Vaccination Target is a “Pipedream”
          September 29, 2021 – IPP Media
          With Africa recording more than 8.3 million COVID-19 cases, the continent continues to suffer from severe vaccine shortages. Less than 4% of the continent has been fully vaccinated and fewer doses are expected to be delivered via COVAX after the UN partition mechanism announced it was forced to cut planned COVID-19 vaccine shipments to Africa by 150 million doses this year . At the UN General Assembly last week, African countries pushed for unity and criticized vaccine inequality. Steven Neri, Project HOPE Regional Director Africa, made the following statement.
        • Global COVID Vaccination Plans Need Urgency, Activists Say
          September 27, 2021 – WebMD
          The virus is spreading now, said Tom Kenyon, MD, chief health officer at Project HOPE, a nongovernmental organization that helps communities solve public health issues. Waiting until next year “is not aggressive enough,” he said.
        • Biden urges nations to ‘go big’ to ensure 70pc of world is vaccinated within a year
          September 22, 2021 – The Telegraph
          And Dr Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of global programmes at the US Centers for Disease Control, also called for a faster vaccine roll out. “While the newly announced target of vaccinating 70 per cent of the world’s population by United Nations General Assembly 2022 is good, taking a whole year to achieve that goal while the virus and variants keep spreading is not aggressive enough. “Now is the time to address our shortfalls with urgency, not long-lead plans that will take many years to realise. Millions of lives remain at risk while new variants and new pandemics are just around the corner,” he said.
        • Khi nào Mỹ phê duyệt vắc xin Covid-19 cho trẻ em dưới 12 tuổi?
          September 22, 2021 – Việt Giải Trí
          Ông Edhie Rahmat, Giám đốc điều hành Tổ chức Chăm sóc y tế phi lợi nhuận Project HOPE chi nhánh Indonesia cho biết do bệnh viện quá tải, khoảng 2/3 bệnh nhân tuổi trưởng thành phải tự cách ly ở nhà. Điều này cũng làm tăng khả năng trẻ em bị lây nhiễm virus SARS-CoV-2. Bên cạnh đó, trẻ sơ sinh cũng chịu rủi ro lây nhiễm khi nhiều người tới thăm. “Một số trẻ mới sinh xuất viện với kết quả xét nghiệm âm tính với virus SARS-CoV-2, nhưng các em lại tử vong vì virus sau khi hàng xóm và họ hàng đến thăm. Thật quá đau lòng”, ông Edhie nói.
        • Young Change Makers: Why and How Julia Maddalina of Project HOPE Is Helping To Change Our World
          September 19, 2021 – Authority Magazine
          Since the pandemic, I’ve found myself working with numerous charities such as Worldbuilders, Jasper’s Game Day, and Project HOPE, using my work to further support their causes whenever I am able. I heard about Project HOPE through a charity drive that Worldbuilders had conducted in April to support their efforts. I learned what they had been able to do to impact and help the health care workers on the frontline. It inspired me and assured me that more good could come from these paintings I had created. The portraits could remember these 100 individuals, but now through Project HOPE’s work, the series has the capacity to support more health care workers.
        • Haiti Residents Still Struggling in Aftermath of Deadly Earthquake
          September 18, 2021 – Atlanta Daily World
          Today, over one month since the August 2021 quake, half of the Haitians affected still need humanitarian assistance – about 400,000 people, according to the District-based nonprofit Project HOPE. “To get medical care, some people are walking for hours. Some come on the back of motorcycles. One man with severe crush injuries to his limbs was carried down the mountainside by a family member and then brought in the back of a pickup truck,” said Project HOPE’s Director of Emergency Response & Preparedness Tom Cotter, who led our team in Haiti in the initial days after the quake.
        • El dron de Fox News en el cruce fronterizo tiene prohibido filmar el área donde están los inmigrantes
          September 18, 2021 – Independent en Español
          Tom Cotter, director de respuesta a emergencias y desastres de Project HOPE, una organización benéfica que ha trabajado en Haití durante más de 40 años, dijo que “cuando la gente llega a una clínica, esperan que no sea una de las 32 instalaciones de salud que fueron completamente dañados o destruidos. Si la clínica está en funcionamiento, es posible que aún tengan que enfrentar la escasez de suministros médicos y personal para tratarlos. Si no es así, están siendo atendidos al aire libre en medio de un clima desafiante, calor, mosquitos y la posible violencia de las multitudes.”
        • Facing stronger storms and drought, Haiti’s farmers live on ‘knife edge’
          September 15, 2021 – Thomson Reuters Foundation News
          Tom Cotter, who heads emergency response and preparedness at aid group Project HOPE, said communities should be asked what they need and given technical expertise to implement projects. Climate resilience initiatives need a longer-term vision and funding for three to five years, while efforts must focus on breaking the “cycle of endless emergency response”, he added.
        • The New Latina: 100 Millennials Shaping Our World
          September 10, 2021 – Books By Brookland
          “The New Latina: 100 Millennials Shaping Our World,” is the first text to showcase 100 influential Latinas from diverse fields, backgrounds and identities. The book features exclusive interviews with, and advice from, Project HOPE’s Yarishdy Mora, alongside celebrities like America Ferrera, Becky G, Kali Uchis, Emeraude Toubia; popular social media creators like Kay-Lani Martinez, Dulce Candy; change-makers like Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, Catalina Cruz, Sara Mora; Olympic athletes like Angelica Delgado and Leticia Bufoni, to name just a few out of one hundred.
        • 26 Questions to Ask Your Doctor About the COVID-19 Vaccine
          September 8, 2021 – U.S. News & World Report
          How can I safely receive the COVID-19 vaccine if I’ve had allergic reactions to other vaccines? Whether you get your COVID-19 vaccine at a pharmacy or your doctor’s office, you want to get your vaccine where they can treat anaphylaxis, although it’s rare, says Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer for Project HOPE and a former director of the CDC’s Center for Global Health. “So you need to be where there is a trained nurse or doctor, plus medications and equipment needed to treat such a reaction,” he says. Epinephrine injections are the first line of treatment for an anaphylactic reaction.
        • For countries with few vaccine doses, fighting COVID-19 is ‘a race from behind’
          September 7, 2021 – PBS NewsHour
          To get vaccines where they need to be, experts on the ground are working through Africa CDC to train local health care workers and ramp up supplies, said Chris Skopec, executive vice president for Project HOPE, a global health organization that collaborates with and assists health ministries in other countries. “It’s a race, and we’re racing from behind,” Skopec said.
        • Haiti earthquake aid slowed by gangs, blocked roads, and shipping delays
          September 7, 2021 – The New Humanitarian
          The pandemic has also caused supply chain disruptions, according to Jason Obten, global logistics director at Project HOPE, a US-based NGO. “Many countries continue to intermittently reduce air access due to quarantine restrictions, and airlines have drastically reduced the number of flights to account for decreased demand,” he said. “Those two factors mean significantly less cargo space available on passenger flights, thereby increasing both cost and the amount of time it takes to reserve space.” The US to Haiti air freight route used to take between three and five days, but Obten said it is now taking more like seven to 10 days.
        • Project HOPE: Help is on the Horizon During COVID-19
          September 7, 2021 – BORGEN Magazine
          Project HOPE is a global health nonprofit that “has responded to nearly every major disaster since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.” Bearing this in mind, it is almost a given that Project HOPE is also an active force in the global fight against COVID-19. In an interview with The Borgen Project, Project HOPE CEO Rabih Torbay discusses Project HOPE’s humanitarian response to COVID-19 and the importance of working with local communities to address any health crisis.
        • How was a safe COVID vaccine developed so fast?
          September 7, 2021 – Huron Daily Tribune
          Before any clinical trial can start, a data monitoring and safety board must approve a study protocol, Dr. Thomas Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of the CDC Center for Global Health, told Medical News Today.
        • Two years after Dorian, slow recovery progress in the Abacos
          September 5, 2021 – Travel Weekly
          Much of the Abacos resembled a war zone when I visited there, three months after Dorian.  But two years later, much of it still does, according to Andrea Dunne-Sosa, Americas’ regional director at Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian organization working with the Ministry of Health in the Bahamas to train community health workers and assist in the disaster response.
        • Haiti needs our support, even after the headlines have stopped
          September 6, 2021 – Metro UK
          “During our first days assisting at a rural health clinic, where we were helping a local Haitian medical team, a pregnant woman walked up to us, supporting her heaving stomach with her hand, saying, ‘I cannot hold anymore,'” writes Tom Cotter and Cora Nally, Project HOPE’s Emergency Response Team for Haiti in this commentary.
        • Will Hurricane Ida cause a spike in Covid-19?
          September 4, 2021 – BBC
          Much of the work stopping the virus from spreading will have to fall to individuals, said Harley Jones, an emergency manager who has been deployed to New Orleans for Project HOPE. “As best as possible, people need to wear masks, avoid crowds, maintain social distance and find ways to wash hands and sanitise,” he said. He acknowledged that it will not be easy with power and water outages and many in need of urgent basic care.
        • St. Pete nonprofit helps fly medical professionals to Louisiana to help hurricane victims
          September 2, 2021 – ABC Action News
          “We’ve got 10 medical professionals from across the country. We’ve got a nurse practitioner from Boston, we’ve got a physician’s assistant from Colorado, Vermont, Maine, Utah, we’ve got folks from all over. They’re professionals in their field. We’ve got doctors, physician’s assistants, nurse practitioners,” said Harley Jones, Senior Program Manager for Domestic Emergency Response for Project HOPE. Project HOPE is another nonprofit, focused on providing equitable healthcare for people around the world. They worked closely with Sol Relief to get help to people in Louisiana, just days after Hurricane Ida made landfall.
        • Hurricane Ida: How to Help Louisiana, Other Areas Hit Hardest by the Storm
          September 2, 2021 – Rolling Stone
          Project HOPE has provided disaster relief around the world for over 60 years, with funding going towards the non-profits medical staff and emergency responders. The group provided critical support to New Orleans’ relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, and donations not used for their Hurricane Ida response will go towards future deployments to aid in global crises.
        • 12 organizations directly helping Black, brown victims of Hurricane Ida
          September 2, 2021 – The Grio
          Project HOPE is a non-profit organization reaching low-income areas where the government cannot. This is a relief and development organization whose mission is to help children and their communities overcome the issues caused by poverty. Project HOPE is responding to Hurricane Ida, sending physical and online donations for victims in need.
        • How to help victims of Ida from Philly
          September 2, 2021 – The Philadelphia Inquirer
          Project HOPE. This group has long had an emergency response presence in the region, including for Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and last year’s Hurricane Laura. Now, it is focusing on mitigating the health effects of Hurricane Ida with medical personnel, hygiene supplies, PPE, and other efforts.
        • How to help Louisiana and the Gulf Coast in Hurricane Ida’s aftermath
          September 2, 2021 – Independent
          Humanitarian relief group Project HOPE is in Louisiana assisting with an “evacuation center with first aid, health screenings, and other medical services.” The group is bringing 8,080 disaster health kits and 98,800 N95 masks.
        • Bay Area medical teams go to Louisiana after Ida devastates area already struggling under pandemic
          September 1, 2021 – Fox 13 Tampa Bay
          A Tampa Bay area non-profit is coordinating flights for several doctors and nurses to Louisiana to help people in need after Hurricane Ida. So far, at least two flights supplied by St. Pete based non-profit Sol Relief landed at Louie Armstrong International Airport Tuesday with several volunteer doctors and nurses from Project HOPE. Doctors and nurses with Project HOPE are among some of the first volunteer medics to hit the ground in New Orleans.
        • Yarishdy Mora is Empowering Youth Through Diabetes Education in Mexico
          September 1, 2021 – Beyond Type 1
          Yarishdy Mora is the country director of Project HOPE Mexico and director of the Youth Health Program at Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian organization working to address public health issues. In her role, she supports young people to take control of their health, particularly chronic and noncommunicable diseases, including diabetes.
        • Europe may soon restrict U.S. tourists again. What does that mean?
          September 1, 2021 – National Geographic
          “No place anywhere on Earth is safe for the unvaccinated and for people exposed to the unvaccinated,” says Tom Kenyon, the chief health officer at Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization, and the former director of Global Health at the CDC. Traveling now, he adds, “is like playing Russian roulette—tragically.”

      August

      • • • • • How to Help People Impacted by Hurricane Ida
                August 31, 2021 – TIME
                Project HOPE, the global health and humanitarian relief organization, is sending teams to distribute hygiene supplies to families in need, including N95 masks, amid Louisiana’s surge in COVID-19 cases. They’re collecting monetary donations to fund the effort.
              • Here’s how to help Houston rescue groups helping Ida victims
                August 31, 2021 – Chron.com
                Project HOPE sent a team of nearly a dozen medical volunteers to New Orleans to help with any relief needed. The group is helping with first aid, health screenings and other medical services. They’re also distributing thousands of disaster medical kits, which include hygiene products and basic necessities.
              • Hurricane Ida: How To Help Recovery Efforts In Gulf Coast
                August 31, 2021 – CBS New York
                Ida has been downgrade to a tropical depression, but not before leaving a path of destruction along the Gulf Coast. The storm slammed into Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday and has been blamed for at least four deaths. More than 1 million homes and businesses were left without power, and officials say restoration could take three weeks in the hardest-hit areas. The following organizations are working to help those on the ground, including Project HOPE.
              • Hurricane Ida disaster relief: How to help people in NYC, New Jersey, and the Mississippi Delta
                August 30, 2021 – Pensacola News Journal
                Project HOPE has deployed to New Orleans to bring hygiene kits and N95 masks to the impacted areas and to help support overstrained local medical responders with first aid, health screenings and other services.
              • How you can help storm victims in Louisiana after Hurricane Ida
                August 30, 2021 – News Nation Now
                Helping the Louisiana area since Hurricane Katrina, Project HOPE said it’s sending 11 volunteers to Louisiana and will also give out 8,000 hygiene kits, which include shampoo, soap, a toothbrush, deodorant, washcloth and a first-aid kit. The group will also give out N95 masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during rescue efforts.
              • The Cajun Navy Responds to Hurricane Ida
                August 30, 2021 – Garden & Gun
                Project HOPE: This international relief organization has deployed medical teams to Louisiana, and is providing and hygiene supplies for families who are being moved to shelters.
              • How to Help After Hurricane Ida
                August 30, 2021 – Southern Living
                Project HOPE: A team of medical personnel is on the ground in the region providing support where needed as well as distributing over 8,000 hygiene kits — which include items like shampoo, soap, a toothbrush, deodorant, washcloth, and a first-aid kit — as well as N95 masks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
              • Here are some ways to help victims of the storm in Louisiana.
                August 30, 2021 – The New York Times
                Project HOPE has sent an emergency response team with 11 medical volunteers and has distributed 8,000 hygiene kits, which include items like shampoo, soap, a toothbrush, deodorant and first-aid supplies. Donations can be made solely for Hurricane Ida emergency relief.
              • Want to donate or volunteer to assist those affected by Hurricane Ida? Here’s how to help
                August 30, 2021 – USA Today
                Project HOPE: Helping the Louisiana area since Hurricane Katrina, the organization is sending 11 volunteers to Louisiana and will also give out 8,000 hygiene kits, which include shampoo, soap, a toothbrush, deodorant, washcloth and a first-aid kit. The group will also give out N95 masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among rescue efforts. Donations can be made here.
              • Hurricane Ida Pummeled Louisiana. Here’s How You Can Help.
                August 30, 2021 – SELF
                Project HOPE, a three-star charity according to Charity Navigator, provides global disaster relief in the form of experts and volunteers, medical support, and the distribution of medical supplies and other necessities. The organization’s emergency responders are providing assistance in Louisiana, especially as the state’s hospitals are already at capacity due to COVID-19.
              • How to help communities affected by Hurricane Ida
                August 30, 2021 – Mashable
                If you’re looking to make a donation to a number of groups, this tool from CNN might be a good option. It splits your money among 13 organizations working on Ida relief, including: AirLink, All Hands and Hearts, American Red Cross, AmeriCares, Direct Relief, Global Giving Foundation, International Medical Corps, World Vision, World Central Kitchen, Save the Children, Rebuilding Together, Project HOPE, and International Relief Teams.
              • How to Help Hurricane Ida Victims: Ways to Donate and Volunteer Following Deadly Storm
                August 30, 2021 – Newsweek
                Project HOPE is providing medical surge support and other relief. With so many people without power and hospitals already at full capacity due to COVID-19, the storm’s impact could be exacerbated. The organization is sending 8,000 hygiene kits as well as N95 masks and has served the region in the past throughout multiple disasters, including Hurricane Katrina, they said in a statement to Newsweek. They are accepting volunteers and donations.
              • How to help Hurricane Ida victims
                August 30, 2021 – Tampa Bay Times
                Project HOPE’s Emergency Response Team and first wave of 11 medical volunteers are providing surge support, in addition to distributing 8,000 hygiene kits, which include items like shampoo, soap, a toothbrush, deodorant, washcloth and a first-aid kit, as well as N95 masks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. A special fund has been set up at projecthope.org/ida.
              • How you can help Hurricane Ida victims
                August 30, 2021 – CNN
                Aid workers are on the ground helping with recovery. You can make a difference through the organizations listed here, including Project HOPE.
              • How to Help Hurricane Ida Victims Right Now
                August 29, 2021 – Gizmodo
                Aiming to curb the health impacts of Ida, Project HOPE is sending its emergency response team to affected areas to distribute hygiene kits. The kids include everything from shampoo and toothpaste to first-aid kits and N95 masks to help limit the spread of covid-19 in an area where hospitals were already at their breaking point before the storm hit. The nonprofit previously assisted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for more than 10 years, according to a spokesperson. Donate to Project HOPE’s Ida efforts here.
              • How To Help Afghan Refugees & Haitian Earthquake Survivors
                August 28, 2021 – NBC 4 Washington
                Molette also spoke with Andrea Dunne-Sosa, Project HOPE’s Americas Regional Director, about how her organization is responding to the devastating August 14th 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Haiti. Learn more about their work in Haiti and around the world and how you can help.
              • Earthquake risks speeding Haiti’s ‘descent into hell’ as thousands lack shelter two weeks on
                August 28, 2021 – The Telegraph
                By the time she reached St Agnes clinic it was a medical emergency; the team on site – just one nurse and doctor in the city of 13,000, as well as a team from humanitarian organisation Project HOPE, who recounted the story above – had to evacuate her to Les Cayes General Hospital.
              • Haiti communities struggle to get aid after earthquake
                August 28, 2021 – The Hill
                Project HOPE, an international health care organization with emergency responders on the ground in Haiti, said in a Wednesday situation report that an estimated 650,000 people were still in need of humanitarian assistance in the three impacted departments, with more than 119,000 people in the region lacking access to drinkable water. Severe damage to buildings and roads in the area due to the earthquake and subsequent landslides have also limited efforts to reach populations in need, with Project HOPE noting that 32 health facilities were damaged or destroyed during the quake.
              • LIST: How to help Haiti earthquake victims
                August 25, 2021 – ABC 7 Washington
                The Bethesda-based humanitarian organization, Project HOPE, is on the ground in Haiti. The organization currently has 10 people there providing relief. Project HOPE said at least 650,000 people in Haiti need humanitarian assistance. Hospitals in the impacted areas are overwhelmed and many medical facilities have suffered major damage. Thousands of people are now homeless, and there is concern that disease could spread after Tropical Storm Grace dumped rain in affected areas causing flooding and landslides.
              • Dealing with COVID-19 vaccine inequity
                August 25, 2021 – Fox 11 Los Angeles
                Dr. Tom Kenyon from Project HOPE talks about getting vaccines to people who need them around the world.
              • Los niños, las víctimas olvidadas de la covid-19 en Indonesia
                August 25, 2021 – El País
                La pandemia ha provocado un menor acceso de los niños a una buena nutrición y a las vacunas de otras enfermedades, mientras que la prevalencia de la obesidad y la diabetes aumentan el riesgo frente a la covid-19 entre los menores de edad indonesios, como han señalado de manera reiterada desde la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS). Indonesia, con algo menos del 10% de sus 270 millones de habitantes completamente vacunados, comenzó el mes pasado a inyectar dosis en menores entre 12 y 17 años, y en mujeres embarazadas. “Los recién nacidos estarán más protegidos si se las vacuna”, explica Edhie Rahmat, directora ejecutiva del Proyecto HOPE en Indonesia.
              • 10 days after devastating Haiti earthquake, many survivors finally get medical attention
                August 24, 2021 – PBS NewsHour
                In Haiti, the death toll from this month’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake continues to rise. More than 2,200 people are confirmed dead, with 344 still missing. John Yang speaks with Project HOPE’s Director of Emergency Response and Preparedness, Tom Cotter, on how the earthquake has led to a new set of challenges for Haitians.
              • How to Prepare for 7 Types of Disasters
                August 24, 2021 – Everyday Health
                “Having a plan is absolutely essential,” says Tom Cotter, MPH, the director of emergency preparedness and response with Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization. “No amount of gadgetry, supplies, or equipment can take the place of a solid, well-thought-out plan.”
              • Project HOPE in Haiti providing relief after earthquake, here’s how you can get involved
                August 24, 2021 – ABC 7 Washington
                The Bethesda-based humanitarian organization, Project HOPE, is on the ground in Haiti responding to the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck on August 14. The organization currently has 10 people there providing relief.
              • Haiti Is Still In Need Of Medical Personnel And Supplies 1 Week After Earthquake
                August 23, 2021 – NPR
                NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with Rawan Hamadeh of Project HOPE about the medical needs in hospitals in Les Cayes, Haiti, after the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that hit the country last Saturday.
              • Project HOPE delivers medical supplies to Haiti after earthquake, flooding, landslides
                August 22, 2021 – ABC 7 Washington
                Andrea Dunne-Sosa, Project Hope’s Regional Director of the Americas, tells 7News On Your Side the Bethesda-based humanitarian organization has about 10 people on the ground right now.
              • ‘Absolutely overwhelmed’: Haiti hospitals struggle after quake
                August 21, 2021 – Al Jazeera
                “There’s huge need. There’s a huge influx of patients that are coming in. There’s a lot of trauma, limb fractures and traumatic injuries in most of the patients,” said Rawan Hamadeh, a healthcare professional with Project HOPE’s emergency response team in the southwestern city of Les Cayes. There’s huge need. There’s a huge influx of patients that are coming in. There’s a lot of trauma, limb fractures and traumatic injuries in most of the patients,” said Rawan Hamadeh, a healthcare professional with Project Hope’s emergency response team in the southwestern city of Les Cayes. “It’s completely crowded. The load of patients is very high. There isn’t enough resources. There isn’t enough medication, medical supplies or even human resources,” said Hamadeh.
              • Increasing vaccine supply isn’t enough to inoculate Africa against COVID-19
                August 19, 2021 – The Guardian NG
                Fortunately, global health organizations are waking up to the need for wider funding. The WHO and the IMF are discussing ways to open up funding for local logistics, while Project HOPE, in collaboration with Africa-CDC and Brown University, launched an online training program targeting 37 African countries, to ensure local vaccinators are prepared for when vaccines arrive.
              • Here’s How You Can Support Earthquake Relief Efforts In Haiti
                August 19, 2021 – NPR
                PBS NewsHour recommends these organizations: UNICEF, Project HOPE, Hope for Haiti, Save the Children, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, The Greater Miami Jewish Federation’s relief fund and Operation Helping Hands from The United Way and the Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald.
              • Haiti is reeling from a devastating earthquake, COVID-19 pandemic and political instability. Here’s how to help.
                August 17, 2021 – USA Today
                Project HOPE is partnering with local organizations for emergency response and offering Personal Protective Equipment and other medical supplies.
              • How to Help Haiti in the Wake of the Devastating Earthquake
                August 17, 2021 – Real Simple
                Project HOPE will be providing critical medicines, medical supplies, hygiene kits, water purification kits, and personal protective equipment to people affected by the earthquake in Haiti.
              • Haiti Earthquake Relief: How You Can Help
                August 16, 2021 – Obama
                Project HOPE has worked in Haiti since 1980, and is currently running an emergency response team on the ground.
              • 3 ways to help Haiti earthquake victims
                August 16, 2021 – Tampa Bay Times
                Project HOPE uses donations to help its emergency response team on the ground. The group has been working in Haiti since 1980, and helped with disaster response during both the 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
              • Haiti earthquake death toll rises over 2,200. Here’s how to help
                August 16, 2021 – CNET
                Project HOPE is partnering with local organizations for emergency response and offering immediate assistance by distributing personal protective equipment and health kits. The organization is now accepting donations.
              • Naomi Osaka Is Donating Prize Money from Her Latest Tournament to Haitian Earthquake Relief Efforts
                August 16, 2021 – Shape
                If you’re looking to help, Project HOPE, a health and humanitarian organization, is currently accepting donations as it mobilizes a team to respond to those affected by the earthquake. Project HOPE provides hygiene kits, PPE, and water purification supplies to save as many as possible.
              • What Will It Take to Eradicate COVID-19?
                August 16, 2021 – Healthline
                “Eradication of SARS-CoV-2, like the world did with smallpox, is not a realistic goal for the world at this time,” said Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of global health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But that could change as coverage with vaccination improves,” he added.
              • How you can help victims of the Haiti earthquake
                August 16, 2021 – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
                Some towns were destroyed and hospitals are overwhelmed with wounded people. Many groups and organizations are already helping, however, including Project HOPE.
              • How to help Haitians after 7.2 magnitude earthquake
                August 16, 2021 – Arab News
                “The health situation in Lebanon is really dire,” Rabih Torbay, president and CEO of US-based humanitarian aid agency Project HOPE, told Arab News. “A lot of the pumps are no longer in a position to supply water to homes, yet people can’t afford to buy bottled water,” said Torbay. “It’s not just the lack of water. With lack of water comes infection outbreaks, diarrheal diseases and hygiene-related issues.”
              • How to help Haitians after 7.2 magnitude earthquake
                August 16, 2021 – PBS NewsHour
                As the crises across Haiti compound, here are some ideas for how to help: Donate to Project HOPE, a nonprofit that is sending out an emergency response team to help the country.
              • Photos Show the Aftermath of the Haiti Earthquake: Here’s How You Can Help
                August 16, 2021 – People Magazine
                Looking to help? Here is a list of some organizations that you can give to that are providing relief to Haiti, including Project HOPE.
              • LI Haitian Americans try to contact loved ones in earthquake-ravaged Haiti
                August 16, 2021 – Newsday
                How you can help: Project HOPE is taking donations to help confront immediate needs on the ground.
              • Here’s how to donate to Haiti relief efforts.
                August 16, 2021 – The New York Times
                After a devastating earthquake hit Haiti on Saturday, killing hundreds and injuring thousands more, nonprofit organizations are accepting donations to help provide urgently needed supplies, like food, water, medical aid and housing, as they also assess what will be needed for the country’s long-term recovery. Project HOPE, also in Maryland, is a nonprofit that provides medical training, health education and humanitarian assistance around the world. The group is sending an emergency response team to Haiti and is working with colleagues on the ground to provide urgently needed medical aid and other critical supplies.
              • Haiti Earthquake Death Toll Soars To 1300
                August 16, 2021 – CNN Newsroom
                Project HOPE’s Regional Director for the Americas region, Andrea Dunne-Sosa, joins Robyn Curnow on CNN Newsroom to talk about the situation in Haiti after the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti early morning Saturday August 14, 2021.
              • COVID-19 Devastated New York’s Health Workers
                August 15, 2021 – Thrive Global
                With support from the Abbott Fund — the foundation of the global health care company Abbott — Project HOPE is working with local partners to pilot a new program to provide mental health and resiliency tools for health care workers. Held in-person and online, the trainings cover topics like stress, grief, and trauma — subjects many health care workers have never had the chance to discuss openly.
              • World Mental Health Day 2021
                August 15, 2021 – Thrive Global
                Mental health is a global crisis that affects people across all walks of life. For World Mental Health Day on October 10, we’re publishing a series of stories that highlight this hidden crisis and what Project HOPE is doing to help.
              • U.S. Shifting COVID-19 Aid Abroad
                August 15, 2021 – Spectrum News 1
                Medical experts from the United States are traveling to countries around the world that have been hit hard by COVID. Project HOPE shares its story of helping medical workers in Nepal.
              • How to help Haiti earthquake victims
                August 14, 2021 – CNN
                A 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti Saturday morning, causing widespread destruction and killing more than 1200 people. CNN’s Impact Your World has compiled a list of organizations accepting donations so you can help those affected by the crisis, including Project HOPE.
              • Widespread Health Impacts Imminent After Haiti’s 7.2-Magnitude Earthquake
                August 14, 2021 – South Florida Caribbean News
                Following the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that hit southwest Haiti on Saturday morning, Project HOPE is deploying members of its emergency preparedness and response team to assess the impacts on health facilities and identify the most urgent medical needs of affected populations. The team will partner with local organizations for emergency response. Plus, offer immediate assistance through the distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) and health kits. In addition to prepping for logistical and access challenges due to significant damage to roads and buildings.
              • Pregnant mums in Indonesia face health risks, anxiety amid cases of maternal deaths linked to COVID-19
                August 14, 2021 – Channel News Asia
                This worrisome period came just as health and humanitarian organisation Project HOPE claimed that maternal deaths in parts of Indonesia in June and July alone have surpassed last year’s total. In Central Java’s regencies of Grobogan and Banyumas, the hometown of Mdm Dita’s mother, there have been at least 85 maternal deaths this year, double the figure in 2020, according to Project HOPE. Nearly 70 per cent of them died due to COVID-19 this year, it said. “It is extremely troubling, and a significant reminder that we cannot let up on safety and control measures as cases drop,” said Project HOPE’s Executive Director for Indonesia Edhie Rahmat. He said that Project HOPE is concerned that the increase in maternal deaths may also occur in other districts. “We know that many pregnant women in Indonesia also suffer from chronic malnutrition and anemia,” he added.
              • Poverty, Disease, Customs: Why So Many Indonesian Children Die of Covid
                August 14, 2021 – The New York Times
                “Since it is tradition, people don’t seem to be aware that health protocols need to be followed even though the government has been repeating the message over and over,” said Dr. Novianne Chasny, the Central Java program manager for the nonprofit group Project HOPE.
              • Vaccine Experts Warn That New Lambda Variant May Be Highly Infectious
                August 14, 2021 – Good Housekeeping
                There’s been more focus on how the Delta variant has propelled new COVID-19 cases across the U.S., but medical experts are taking heed of Lambda after it became a dominant variant across Latin and South America, according to Thomas Kenyon, M.D., MPH, a former CDC Director of Global Health and the Chief Health Officer at Project HOPE, a global health relief organization. It is likely much more transmissible than the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, per international medical consensus spotlighted in this Reuters report. “Lack of vaccination allows COVID-19 to spread and mutate, which creates new variants like Lambda,” Dr. Kenyon tells Good Housekeeping. “Studies are ongoing, but early evidence suggests that Lambda may be more infectious and may even escape some of the immunity we gain through vaccination.”
              • Why and when you need a coronavirus test for travel
                August 13, 2021 – The Washington Post
                Tom Kenyon, Project HOPE’s chief health officer who spent 21 years at the CDC, is on a similar page as Gonsenhauser. “If you’re fully vaccinated, testing really doesn’t add much other than to give more reassurance,” he says. So who should get tested? As Kenyon said, you could get a test “if you want to be really sure you’re not posing a risk to others and that you’re not one of these people that have a very rare breakthrough infection.” His advice on testing is different for the unvaccinated. “If you’re unvaccinated and you really think you have to travel, then you should get a viral test one to three days before you travel,” Kenyon says. “Then after you travel, get another viral test three to five days after you get back and then stay home. Nothing’s changed.”
              • Indonesian Parents Grieve For Child Covid Victims
                August 13, 2021 – International Business Times
                Indonesia, where less than 10 percent of its 270 million people are fully inoculated with two jabs, last month began vaccinating 12-17 year olds and pregnant women. “Newborns will be more protected if pregnant women are vaccinated, ” said Edhie Rahmat, executive director for Project HOPE in Indonesia.
              • ‘Anak saya cita-citanya jadi tentara’: COVID-19 merenggut anak-anak Indonesia
                August 9, 2021 – Channels News Asia
                Edhie Rahmat, direktur eksekutif Indonesia untuk Project HOPE, suatu kelompok pelayanan kesehatan nirlaba, mengatakan bahwa salah satu kemungkinan penyebab bayi terjangkiti COVID-19 hingga meninggal adalah kebiasaan di masyarakat untuk mengunjungi bayi yang baru lahir setelah dipulangkan dari rumah sakit. Menurutnya, tanpa disadari, kunjungan keluarga dan kerabat untuk menengok bayi dan ibunya dapat menyebarkan COVID-19. “Menyedihkan sekali. Merayakan kelahiran bayi adalah tradisi, dan sulit bagi ibu ataupun keluarga untuk menolak orang-orang yang datang tanpa mematuhi prokes… Tapi, sekarang ini risikonya terlalu besar.”
              • How the Delta Variant Might Change Your Travel Plans
                August 6, 2021 – AFAR
                “Lifting travel restrictions is made complicated by the fact that globally countries have varying degrees of immunization and varying epidemics,” states Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer for international healthcare NGO Project Hope and former director of global health at the CDC. “We have to remind ourselves that COVID-19 is not over for any country. Even here in the U.S., [many] Americans have not yet chosen to be vaccinated, leaving a large population reservoir for proliferation of more infectious variants, such as the Delta variant,” adds Kenyon.
              • Increasing calls to vaccinate pregnant women against COVID-19
                August 5, 2021 – Devex
                Indonesia has recently done so, supporting the vaccination of pregnant women in their second trimester of pregnancy. COVID-19 vaccinations are also now open to children aged 12-17 years old. Edhie Rahmat, executive director at Project HOPE in the country, said the decision came after concerns over reported deaths of pregnant women and children in recent months.
              • Lebanon marks first anniversary of deadly blast amid tears and anger
                August 4, 2021 – TRT World
                “Lebanon has become a living nightmare of surreal proportions. The country now has one of the lowest minimum wages in the world, standing at 675,000 Lebanese pounds, which is barely $30,” said Rabih Torbay, CEO of Project HOPE, an international healthcare NGO, in a statement.  “This is two times less than the monthly minimum wage in the Central African Republic ($63) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo ($55).”
              • Ett år efter explosionen – Libanon i fritt fall
                August 4, 2021 – Göteborgs-Posten
                Politisk inkompetens, korruption och religiös splittring har lamslagit det libanesiska samhället. För många är livet i pandemin och kaos en kamp för att överleva i brist på mat, mediciner, bränsle, el, arbeten och med en inflation där pengar blir mindre värda för varje dag. Sprängningen gjorde att många familjer gick sönder, fysiskt, ekonomiskt och mentalt, säger Rabih Torbay på den humanitära organisationen Project HOPE.
              • Bejrút před rokem a dnes. Talentovaní lidé odcházejí, chybí léky. Libanonci vyšli do ulic a žádají spravedlnost
                August 4, 2021 – Hospodářské Noviny
                Libanonská libra od roku 2019 ztratila na 90 procent své hodnoty vůči dolaru. Přibývá chudých, roční inflace dosahuje 700 procent, nemocnice si stěžují na nedostatek léků. „Rok od výbuchu je celá země na kolenou. Polovina populace žije pod hranicí chudoby,“ uvedl Rabih Torbay, ředitel nevládní organizace Project Hope, jež místním poskytuje zdravotní péči. „Velká část Libanonců přežívá tak, že se spoléhá na své příbuzné žijící v zahraničí, kteří jim posílají peníze nebo základní zboží, jako jsou léky, hygienické prostředky, nebo dokonce dětské plenky,“ popisuje Torbay.
              • Líbano, de rodillas a un año de explosión
                August 4, 2021 – El Universal
                “La posibilidad de que el Líbano se convierta en un ‘Estado fallido’ es cada día más real. Líbano necesita más que nunca de ayuda internacional”, afirma Rabih Torbay, presidente de la organización humanitaria Project HOPE. “Sin embargo, esto no será suficiente mientras no se encuentren soluciones dentro del país. Líbano debe romper con su endémica incapacidad política, porque el país ya se está quedando sin opciones”. RABIH TORBAY Presidente de la organización humanitaria Project HOPE “Hace un año, una enorme explosión envió una onda expansiva a través de Beirut, trayendo muerte, destrucción y miedo.”
              • A year on, Beirut blast victims still struggling to return home
                August 2, 2021 – Al Jazeera
                “The blast left many families broken, physically, financially and mentally,” President of humanitarian organisation Project HOPE Rabih Torbay told Al Jazeera. “The country now has an average minimum wage of 675,000 Lebanese pounds, which is about $30 per month.”
              • Breakthrough COVID-19 infections show unvaccinated risking the vaccinated: Experts
                August 2, 2021 – Al Arabiya News
                Project HOPE’s Chiefl Health Officer and former CDC Director of Global Health, Dr. Tom Kenyon, told Al Arabiya English, vaccines still offer the best protection against the virus. “We still don’t have all the answers and need more research, but it’s urgent for people to get vaccinated as soon as possible if they can in order to protect themselves, their families and loved ones from these new variants.”

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      July

      • • • • • Global COVID deaths rise sharply, led by surging Delta
                July 26, 2021 – CIDRAP
                Project HOPE, a humanitarian organization working in Indonesia, said today that maternal deaths caused by the virus are rising, with maternal deaths in general having already passed the total for all of 2020. In a statement, the group said most of the deaths occurred within the past 2 months, tracking closely with Indonesia’s rise in COVID-19 activity.
              • Should You Worry About the Lambda Variant?
                July 26, 2021 – Verywell Health
                Tom Kenyon, MD, MPH, chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of global health at the CDC, says that the Delta variant has led to an “explosive situation” of COVID-19 cases. As a result, he urges people to combine multiple layers of protection, like getting vaccinated and following social distancing measures.” “During this period of uncertainty, when the Delta variant is creating a new wave of infections and when we know our vaccines are very effective but not perfect, the vaccinated should also be masking up when they are indoors with people who are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status,” Kenyon tells Verywell in an email. “COVID-19 is far from over.”
              • No Longer ‘Hidden Victims,’ Children Are Dying as Virus Surges in Indonesia
                July 26, 2021 – The New York Times
                With hospitals at capacity, about two-thirds of adult patients are in isolation at home, which increases the chance that children will be infected, said Edhie Rahmat, executive director for Indonesia at the nonprofit health-care group Project HOPE. Infants are also put at risk by the tradition of friends and neighbors visiting a newborn’s home to celebrate the birth, he said. “These newborns are being released from hospitals with negative Covid-19 status, but later contracting Covid-19 and dying after being visited by neighbors and extended family members,” Mr. Edhie said. “It is heartbreaking.”
              • Live Covid-19 Updates: Tokyo Cases Surge Amid Games; U.K. Welcomes Streak: Virus Update
                July 25, 2021 – Bloomberg
                Indonesian maternal deaths due to Covid-19 are accelerating and could worsen as infections keep spreading across the country, said Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian group. Mortality during pregnancy in the Central Java districts of Grobogan and Banyumas has more than doubled this year, it said in a statement. Nearly 70% of Indonesian maternal deaths this year have been the direct result of Covid-19 infection, Project HOPE said.
              • Delta variant, breakthrough infections complicate messaging on mask use
                July 22, 2021 – Sinclair Broadcast Group/WJLA
                Given the developing situation, Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of global health at the CDC, urged people to take extra precautions, even if they are vaccinated. “COVID-19 is far from over,” he warned. “[D]uring this period of uncertainty when the Delta variant is creating a new wave of infections and when we know our vaccines are very effective but not perfect, the vaccinated should also be masking up when they are indoors with people who are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status. And keeping their distance from others as best they can.”
              • Indonesia reported the highest new Covid cases in the world last week, says WHO
                July 22, 2021 – CNBC
                Edhie Rahmat, executive director for Indonesia at a humanitarian organization, said the decline may be due to other factors. One is that fewer tests are being administered as Indonesians don’t want to be tested, he told CNBC in an email. “Officials may say that the newly-confirmed Covid-19 cases are falling … but this is because the number of testing and tracing is also declining after the implementation of hard social restrictions in Java,” said Rahmat of Project HOPE, or Health Opportunities for People Everywhere. “There is increasing hesitancy among people to be tested — even if they have a running nose, fever or other Covid-19 symptoms,” he said, adding that they don’t want to be asked to isolate themselves or face the stigma of testing positive.
              • How to Help the Covid-19 Crisis in Indonesia
                July 19, 2021 – IGN
                Covid-19 cases in Indonesia are soaring, here’s how to help. Project HOPE is a nonprofit sending support to countries in South Asia, including Indonesia, India, and Nepal. They are dispersing medical equipment and supplies, training those on the front lines, and helping teach communities how to stay safe and stop the spread of Covid-19.
              • Indonesia is battling a devastating Covid-19 crisis. And its peak is likely still to come
                July 18, 2021 – CNN
                “Sick patients are just waiting for new deaths so they can even have a chance of making it inside a hospital,” Project HOPE’s Executive Director for Indonesia, Edhie Rahmat, said in a statement earlier this month, adding that many hospitals have built tents to care for patients outside the buildings. “The peak for the second Covid-19 wave in Indonesia has not been reached yet.”
              • Does the Delta COVID-19 variant threaten vaccine efficacy?
                July 17, 2021 – Al Arabiya News
                “We still don’t have all the answers and need more research, but it’s urgent for people to get vaccinated as soon as possible if they can in order to protect themselves, their families and loved ones from these new variants,” Project HOPE’s Chiefly Health Officer and former CDC Director of Global Health, Dr. Tom Kenyon, told Al Arabiya English. “The longer it takes to vaccinate everyone, the more opportunity there is for the virus to mutate, and the more the virus mutates, the greater the possibility of creating variants that are more contagious, make us sicker, and are able to evade the immunity we develop when we are vaccinated,” he added.
              • As delta variant spreads in U.S., Pennsylvania COVID-19 vaccinations stall
                July 14, 2021 – WITF
                Dr. Tom Kenyon, the Chief Health Officer of Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization, said unvaccinated people — including children under 12, who aren’t eligible for the shot — are incubators for a virus that replicates inside their bodies billions of times each day. Every time the virus replicates, there’s a risk it could become vaccine-resistant. “That’s what would be the doomsday scenario,” Kenyon said. “If we have a more infectious virus, and more lethal virus, and God forbid, one that evades vaccines, then we’re in big, big trouble.” Fortunately — for now — vaccines remain incredibly effective against the delta variant, Kenyon added. He said there’s wide consensus in the public health community that the “horrific scale” of hospitalizations and deaths seen in the U.S. last year shouldn’t happen again. “But what you’ll see is these smaller epidemics locally. We’re already seeing those crop up all over the country, in summer camps, in office buildings, in churches, you name it. Wherever people are unvaccinated.”
              • COVID-19 spike in Indonesia begs faster vaccinations
                July 13, 2021 – Sci Dev Net
                Edhie Rahmat, executive director of Project Hope – Indonesia, a nonprofit health organisation, says the COVID-19 crisis is worsening in several cities and districts on the island of Java, Indonesia’s most populous island, because of a shortage of resources like hospital beds and oxygen as well as health care workers, many of them having fallen ill themselves. According to Rahmat, patients in hospitals and in the community, including those self-isolating, are facing oxygen shortages. “If oxygen can be found, then the price is three to four times higher than the regular price,” he adds.
              • US turns corner, but world way behind on COVID-19
                July 10, 2021 – The Hill
                In Indonesia, the humanitarian organization Project HOPE reports that hospitals are overwhelmed and are building tents to care for patients as bed capacity is filled. “Sick patients are just waiting for new deaths so they can even have a chance of making it inside a hospital,” the group’s executive director for Indonesia, Edhie Rahmat, said in a statement.
              • Australians in Indonesia fear for their safety as deadly Delta COVID outbreak worsens
                July 9, 2021 – ABC News Australia
                “The peak of the second COVID-19 wave in Indonesia has not been reached yet,” said Edhie Rahmat, head of Project HOPE in Indonesia, an NGO. “Sick patients are just waiting for new deaths so they can even have a chance of making it inside a hospital.”
              • Huge New Wave Is the COVID Nightmare Scientists Feared Most
                July 9, 2021 – The Daily Beast
                “Alarm bells should be going off,” Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of the Center for Global Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNBC. “Given the horrors we just saw in India, that should be cause for alarm and stimulate action.” Kenyon predicts Africa’s worst case scenario will soon be more dire than Asia’s.
              • Should You Mix COVID-19 Vaccines?
                July 9, 2021 – Verywell Health
                Tom Kenyon, MD, MPH, chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of global health at the CDC, writes to Verywell that more research is needed to determine whether mixing vaccines will work. “There is a theoretical possibility that using different vaccines could actually strengthen the immune response to different parts of the spike protein,” he says. “But we need to await further study results before allowing mixing vaccine doses.”
              • Delta COVID variant surges in Asia, casts shadow on Olympics
                July 8, 2021 – Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
                Project Hope, a nonprofit health organization that is supporting 25 hospitals across Indonesia, today warned that the country’s COVID situation could trigger an urgent call for emergency humanitarian assistance. In a statement, Edhie Rahmat, MSc, the group’s executive director for Indonesia, said the peak of the second wave hasn’t been reached yet and that hospitals in many areas have exceeded capacity and have built tents to care for patients. “Both hospitals and those sick patients outside the hospitals who are self-quarantining are queuing for oxygen, but it’s very difficult to get even a single small tank. If they can find oxygen, the price is 3 to 4 times higher than normal prices,” he said. Central and local governments have imposed social restrictions until Jul 20, but they might not be enough to prevent a worsening surge, Rahmat added.
              • Africa suffers worst surge in Covid cases as delta variant spurs third wave of pandemic
                July 8, 2021 – CNBC
                “Alarm bells should be going off,” says Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of the Center for Global Health at the U.S. CDC. He said Africa’s rate of new cases will soon surpass Asia’s. “Given the horrors we just saw in India, that should be cause for alarm and stimulate action.” He said the Covid emergency in Africa “may become worse than anywhere else we’ve seen.” … “Some vaccine deliveries are expected in August, but nowhere near what is needed,” said Kenyon, who also served as the CDC’s country director in Botswana, Namibia and Ethiopia. “To be successful, a vaccine supply must be paired with a trained workforce and delivery systems.”
              • Nepal’s response to COVID-19 crisis is laudable: Project HOPE Country Lead
                July 8, 2021 – Khabar Hub
                Among a few hard-working INGOs working to bring substantive change in the lives of people, Project HOPE has registered itself in the top position. Khabarhub talked to Emilija Dukovski, Country Lead of Nepal, Project HOPE on various issues.
              • Indonesia faces Indian-style Covid crisis as fears grow over deaths among fully vaccinated doctors
                July 8, 2021 – The Telegraph
                “The pandemic has been so long, and the healthcare system is already distressed,” said Edhie Rahmat, Indonesia executive director of Project HOPE. “There is excessive work, they are already depressed with the situation. They have a high risk of getting sick and infected, and some of them dying. There is also a shortage of supply of personal protective equipment,” he said.  Rahmat said “rocketing numbers”, the lack of personal protective equipment and a high viral load in hospital wards without good ventilation had contributed to the burden on health workers. But he added: “It is unfortunate for Indonesian healthcare workers that they have received vaccines with low efficacy…compared to mRNA vaccines.” Rahmat appealed to the government to revaccinate healthcare workers with mRNA vaccines – such as the Pfizer and Moderna jabs – when they arrive in the country later this summer. In trials these vaccines have higher efficacy rates – both over 90 per cent – compared to Sinovac’s 51 per cent. However, trials showed it was much better at preventing severe disease and hospitalisation. “That’s one policy that everyone has to think about because risking healthcare workers means risking the health system,” he said.
              • Live COVID-19 Updates: Nepal making progress in Covid fight despite ‘extraordinarily challenging conditions’
                July 7, 2021 – The Telegraph
                Nepal’s healthcare workers are making progress in the fight against Covid-19, despite “extraordinarily challenging conditions” that include an urgent need for more vaccines and constant strain on the country’s health system. Tom Cotter, director of emergency response and preparedness at Project HOPE, described the scene in Butwal, a city 240km west of Katmandu. He said: “What we’re seeing on the ground in Nepal is a painful example of how Covid-19 crises overwhelm already-stretched local health systems… Fortunately, the Nepali people are strong and most resilient, and they are making immense strides despite extraordinarily challenging conditions.” “However, with minimal to no vaccine access in the region, the potential for recovery from this recent Covid-19 spike and protection from possible next waves remains cause for high concern. The global community must come together to address how to make vaccines accessible for the Nepali people,” he added. Dr. Nabin Darnal,  superintendent of Lumbini province hospital, said: “Our frontliners are working in this remote area 24 hours a day to help people with Covid-19.”
              • Africa News Tonight
                July 5, 2021 – Voice of America
                Project HOPE’s Regional Director for Africa, Steven Neri, spoke to VOA’s Mohammed Elshinnawi over two episodes of Africa News Tonight discussing COVID-19 across the continent.
              • Why have these countries not received COVID-19 vaccines?
                July 5, 2021 – Gulf News
                Insufficient vaccine supply across the continent has been attributed as the main reason for the low inoculation rate. But there are several other factors that have contributed to the slow vaccine rollout in Africa. Project HOPE found that even when some countries received vaccine doses, they were not always able to vaccinate en masse. Lack of funds, lack of trained professionals and hesitancy among the population to get the vaccine contributed to the low rate of inoculation.
              • From Money To Monsoons: Obstacles Loom For Countries Awaiting Vaccine Doses
                July 5, 2021 – NPR
                For every dollar spent on vaccine doses, $5 needs to be spent on delivery, according to one analysis from the nonprofit group CARE. And WHO has estimated the cost of delivering vaccines to 20% of the population in 92 of the COVAX countries could amount to more than $2 billion. “To run a campaign, you need funding,” says Steven Neri, who runs public health programs in Africa for Project HOPE, a humanitarian group. “That’s going to definitely be a challenge in many countries.” … With the promise of vaccination still months away for most people, these COVAX countries have a tricky balancing act in front of them: They have to plan a communication campaign to keep people interested and ready to get a shot, says Steven Neri of Project Hope. at the same time they need to set realistic expectations for when that will actually be possible. “The timing,” he says, “is going to be really, really critical.”
              • Know Before You Go: Here’s a Rundown of Other Countries’ COVID-19 Travel Restrictions
                July 4, 2021 – Healthline
                “Lifting travel restrictions is made complicated by the fact that globally, countries have varying degrees of immunization and varying epidemics. Summer travel will further cast a spotlight on the growing global inequities when it comes to access to COVID-19 vaccines,” Dr. Thomas Kenyon, MPH, chief health officer of international healthcare organization Project HOPE and the former director of Global Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Healthline. “If the lifting of travel restrictions to Europe is not handled carefully, for example, unvaccinated travelers will become the trans-Atlantic vector for the continued global spread of COVID-19 and variants,” Kenyon said.
              • Africa News Tonight
                July 2, 2021 – Voice of America
                Project HOPE’s Regional Director for Africa, Steven Neri, spoke to VOA’s Mohammed Elshinnawi over two episodes of Africa News Tonight discussing COVID-19 across the continent.
              • It’s been 10 years of crisis in Syria — don’t create one more
                July 1, 2021 – The Hill
                In less than two weeks, the United Nations Security Council will be faced with a critical choice that could have life or death consequences for millions of Syrians. The current UN Security Council resolution authorizing cross-border humanitarian assistance into Syria is set to expire on July 10. For nearly 4 million people in northwest Syria, half of whom are displaced and living in makeshift shelters, the cross-border humanitarian operation is a lifeline that cannot be duplicated. [Opinion Editorial by Rabih Torbay, President & CEO, Project HOPE, and Dr. Zaher Sahloul, President & Co-Founder, MedGlobal]
              • Climate Adaptation: Summer Is Already Off to a Wild Start
                July 1, 2021 – Bloomberg
                Many parts of the Caribbean, Central America and the U.S. are still trying to recover from past hurricane seasons. Louisiana, and Honduras and Nicaragua, were all hit by back-to-back hurricanes in 2020, with hurricanes Iota and Eta leaving hundreds dead in Central America. The storms caused $3 billion in damage to Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, according to UN and government estimates. “Climate change is compounding the misery of people living in these vulnerable communities,” Tom Cotter, director of emergency response and preparedness at Project HOPE, a Virginia-based humanitarian organization, said in an interview in May.

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      June

      • • • • • • Uncertainty Has Made It Hard For Countries Getting COVAX Vaccine Doses To Prepare
                  June 29, 2021 – NPR
                  The U.S. and its allies are starting to send about 1 billion doses to Latin America, Africa and Asia. Workers on the ground say there are still big obstacles to making sure vaccines don’t go to waste. Project HOPE’s Regional Director for Africa, Steven Neri, spoke to NPR’s Will Stone.
                • Africa continues to fall behind in the global race to vaccinate its population against Covid-19
                  June 29, 2021 – France24
                  Eye on Africa: As Africa continues to fall behind in the global race to vaccinate its population against Covid-19, Project HOPE says the problem goes beyond a lack of supply and that a more holistic approach is needed. Wondwossen Asefa, Project HOPE’s Deputy Regional Director for Africa spoke with France 24’s Georja Calvin-Smith. Interview starts at 9.10.
                • Indonesia’s health-care workers struggle with a ‘double burden’ as cases rise, humanitarian organization says
                  June 24, 2021 – CNBC
                  Medical workers in Indonesia are grappling with the pressure of caring for Covid-19 patients while vaccinating the population, Edhie Rahmat of Project HOPE said. “The longer the pandemic lasts and the higher the caseload builds, will impact their workload and make them vulnerable to transmission and infection,” he said. First, they have to take care of both Covid patients and patients with other diseases. Second, they are “under pressure to rapidly cover a high number of populations that need to be vaccinated,” he told CNBC in an email.
                • Is it safe to mix-and-match COVID-19 vaccines? Here’s what we know so far
                  June 23, 2021 – Al Arabiya News
                  “The bottom line is that we need more research to determine whether using different vaccines in a patient will work or not. Obviously, it would provide logistical benefit if vaccination programs could use whatever vaccines are available if a limited supply keeps the patient from receiving their second dose of the same vaccine as the first,” Chief Health Officer at Project HOPE and former Director of Global Health at the US Centers For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) Dr. Tom Kenyon told Al Arabiya English. “Some countries allow a Pfizer vaccine to be followed by Moderna or vice versa, but those are both mRNA vaccines. There is a theoretical possibility that using different vaccines could actually strengthen the immune response to different parts of the spike protein, but we need to await further study results before allowing mixing vaccine doses.”
                • Millions of U.S. COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Set to Expire and Be Destroyed This Summer
                  June 22, 2021 – Verywell Health
                  Globally, only 21% of the population has started the vaccination process, and less than 1% of people living in low-income countries have received a dose. In Africa, less than 3% of the population has received one dose of a COVID vaccine. “Every vaccine dose is like liquid gold,” Wondwossen Asefa, deputy regional director for Africa at Project HOPE, said in a press statement about vaccine rollout challenges. “No country can afford to waste vaccine doses when variants are spreading, and lives are at stake.”
                • 5 COVID-19 Takeaways That Changed Medicine
                  June 20, 2021 – Discover Magazine
                  Vaccine production speed: “We don’t have a ready-made national emergency vaccine delivery system,” says former CDC director Tom Kenyon, now with the humanitarian relief organization Project HOPE. “We’re going to have to get that in place with the next pandemic.” Without such a distribution plan, future state-of-the-art vaccines can’t have the game-changing impact they were meant to produce. Addressing racial disparity: On the national level, U.S. House Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) recently introduced the Anti-Racism in Public Health Act, which would fund research into structural racism’s health impacts and create a National Center for Anti-Racism at the CDC. Down the line, U.S. lawmakers will need to allocate more funding to local and national public health agencies, says Kenyon, the chief health officer at Project HOPE. Public agencies can promote equal care by getting life-saving information and vaccines to underserved populations.
                • The European Union Recommends Opening to Americans to Rescue the Summer
                  June 17, 2021 – The New York Times
                  The lifting of travel restrictions between the world’s wealthiest countries with high vaccination rates further highlights the stark global inequalities when it comes to access to vaccines, experts say. “Only 0.3 percent of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered globally have been in low-income countries,” said Dr. Thomas Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE, a global health and relief organization, and former global health director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
                • Indonesian Health Workers Bear the Burden of New COVID Wave
                  June 17, 2021 – The Telegraph
                  Live COVID-19 Updates: Hospitals across Indonesia are nearing full capacity as the Delta variant of COVID-19 continues to spread, with health workers in the country suffering immense physical and mental tolls. Between 700 and 900 Indonesian health care workers have died since the country’s first confirmed COVID-19 case in March 2020. Since the last week of May 2021, Project HOPE has received consistent reports of more COVID infections and deaths among health care workers from the Kudus and Bangkalan districts.
                • Myriad of factors slow Africa’s vaccination drive
                  June 14, 2021 – CAJ News Africa
                  A global health and humanitarian organisation has highlighted that lack of vaccines is not the only reason for the slow vaccination rollout in Africa. Other issues persist such as inadequate funds, lack of trained professionals and hesitancy among the population to get the vaccine. Project HOPE established that several factors include many countries not being able to reach priority groups because they are not equipped with up-to-date registration systems that allow to locate and register these priority individuals, while logistics and storage challenges prevail.
                • Millions of Yemenis Stand on the Edge of Famine
                  June 13, 2021 – Al Bawaba
                  “People in Yemen feel that they have been forgotten by the world while they are suffering,” said Rabih Torbay, the CEO of Project Hope, an international healthcare NGO. A six-year long civil conflict has displaced 4 million people, devastated the economy and destroyed half the hospitals in what was already the poorest Arab state. “We cannot do that. We cannot forget the people of Yemen and we can not forget the health workers. We need to keep this crisis on the radar screen until the solution is found,” Torbay told TRT World…Torbay said that the Covid-19 pandemic has killed at least 150 doctors in Yemen but exact figures are hard to get by due to lack of data. “This is a country which has around 10 healthcare workers for 10,000 people. That’s not 10 doctors but 10 healthcare workers (including nurses). Imagine the impact of the doctors dying on patients who go untreated.”
                • Women Carry An Undue Mental Health Burden. They Shouldn’t Have To
                  June 12, 2021 – Ms. Magazine
                  Like so many other global health issues, the burdens of mental health fall hardest on women. Building a more equitable world means acknowledging—and addressing—that gap. Rawan Hamadeh, Project HOPE’s Associate Project Coordinator for Mental Health Programming, issued this op-ed.
                • Yemen crisis is worsening and the world must act now, say aid workers
                  June 11, 2021 – TRT World
                  “People in Yemen feel that they have been forgotten by the world while they are suffering,” said Rabih Torbay, the CEO of Project Hope, an international healthcare NGO. A six-year long civil conflict has displaced 4 million people, devastated the economy and destroyed half the hospitals in what was already the poorest Arab state. “We cannot do that. We cannot forget the people of Yemen and we cannot forget the health workers. We need to keep this crisis on the radar screen until the solution is found,” Torbay told TRT World…Torbay said that the Covid-19 pandemic has killed at least 150 doctors in Yemen but exact figures are hard to get by due to lack of data. “This is a country which has around 10 healthcare workers for 10,000 people. That’s not 10 doctors but 10 healthcare workers (including nurses). Imagine the impact of the doctors dying on patients who go untreated.”
                • Biden Is Reasserting the U.S.’ Role in Vaccine Distribution. Is It Enough?
                  June 10, 2021 – TIME
                  The move marks a clean break from Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, who regularly lambasted these types of international institutions. “It shows we’re taking a leadership role and that’s been badly missing,” says Chris Skopec, executive Vice President at Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization. “We are one of the largest manufacturing countries in the world when it comes to vaccines. We have the most resources to help produce this.” … After hearing about the Pfizer deal, Skopec was optimistic, and adamant that more could be done. “Showing that level of leadership is a great start, but thats all it is—a start,” says Skopec. “Five hundred million vaccines is not enough. It needs to be a pipeline, it needs to be something we keep committing to.”
                • How New White House Plan To Address Supply Chain Crisis Will Impact Companies
                  June 8, 2021 – Forbes
                  Jason Obten is the global logistics director at Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian organization that has distributed over 17 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) around the globe since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. He noted that, “The importance of on-shoring pharmaceutical production, including Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), to ensure the stability of the supply chain is crucial for preparedness” before a crisis. “At the beginning of the pandemic, many countries sought protection by nationalizing personal protective equipment (PPE) stock. Those actions, while understandable, exposed the national security threat posed to public health systems around the world by globalization of supply chains over the last 20 years and reliance on just-in-time production,” he said. “We not only need to onshore production, but also the means of producing underlying materials. Production capacity is useless without raw materials to sustain it. [If] we are to protect public health systems around the world, we need not only to build it into our national systems, but to assist other nations in building internal stability and resilience as well,” Obten cautioned.
                • The Start of Hurricane Season Brings Anxieties to Central America, Still Reeling From Last Year’s Disasters
                  June 3, 2021 – TIME
                  At Project HOPE, relief organizers say that a warming climate is having a substantial effect on their work, with the organization expanding its emergency response teams and recruiting more volunteers in order to deploy to multiple disasters at a time. “Both the scale and the frequency of the disasters that we’re responding to are like nothing we’ve seen in our past,” says Project HOPE Americas Regional Director Andrea Dunne-Sosa. “It’s not only anticipated. It’s been happening.”
                • Many countries are getting left behind in the vaccine race, and that’s taking a toll on healthcare employees that could lead to an 18 million worker shortage by 2030
                  June 1, 2021 – Business Insider
                  Dr. Tom Kenyon, a former director of the Center for Global Health, and current Chief Health Officer for Project HOPE told Insider that healthcare workers across the world are struggling with their mental health amidst the pandemic, whether it be new anxiety or depression or simply worsening conditions as they continue to treat patients. Project HOPE launched Mental Health & Resiliency Trainings for health care workers, in Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, and the Philippines last summer to help those on the frontlines of the pandemic navigate the pressures that could lead to negative mental health outcomes.
                • The mental health of health workers in the pandemic
                  June 1, 2021 – World Health Organization
                  The value of peer-to-peer exchange is also being demonstrated by the humanitarian aid organization Project HOPE, which is providing mental health support for health-care workers involved in the COVID-19 response in the Dominican Republic, Indonesia and the Philippines. According to Rawan Hamadeh, Project HOPE’s associate project coordinator for mental health programmes, the initiative uses both online and in-person sessions. The first session was held in September 2020 in Indonesia and 130 doctors, nurses and psychologists were brought together. “They openly discussed topics that are often silenced in the workplace, including exhaustion, depression, and compassion fatigue,” says Hamadeh, who says, “Fear of stigma is the number one obstacle to health-care workers speaking openly”.
                • Experts: COVID Variants Are Not Causing More Infections In Vaccinated People
                  June 1, 2021 – Verywell Health
                  Vaccine Equity: Much to that end, global vaccine access is also about equity. In a press statement, Tom Kenyon, MD, MPH, chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of global health at the CDC, said “one of the greatest health inequities of all time is currently underway due to the shortages in COVID-19 vaccine supply, vaccine hoarding by wealthier nations, and their failure to use the WHO’s COVAX facility for more equitable vaccine distribution.” Kenyon added that “we must prioritize access and increasing supply to achieve global vaccine equity as soon as possible—so those who want the lifesaving benefits of vaccines get the protection they rightfully deserve.”

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      May

      • • • • • • To protect Americans and help the world, US needs to start giving more COVID-19 vaccine away more quickly, experts say
                  May 21, 2021 – USA Today
                  Three international gatherings in the next month could be turning points, said Dr. Tom Kenyon, director of the nonprofit international health care organization Project HOPE and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s former director of global health. This week is the G20 Global Health Summit. Next week is the World Health Assembly, and the second week of June is the G7 Leaders’ Summit. “U.S. involvement could be the tipping point,” Kenyon said. “We need something to rally around, because clearly, we’re failing to vaccinate the world.”
                • Hurricanes to Pound Atlantic in Active Season, U.S. Says
                  May 20, 2021 – Bloomberg
                  Many areas pummeled by storms last year are still recovering from the devastation. Louisiana, Honduras and Nicaragua each experienced back-to-back hurricane strikes in 2020, with hurricanes Iota and Eta leaving hundreds dead in the Central American countries. “It takes years for communities to recover from significant storms,” said Tom Cotter, director of emergency response and preparedness at Project HOPE, a Virginia-based health and humanitarian organization. “If there is aid coming, it’s concentrated on the initial impact but what we forget is there is continuing need for years and that is a tougher sell.”
                • How to help people around the world get vaccinated
                  May 20, 2021 – Mashable
                  While masks are coming off in the U.S., we’re nowhere near the end of the pandemic. To help us get there, donate your dollars and raise your voices in support of these initiatives. Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization, empowers and trains local healthcare workers to prevent disease and save lives. It’s been vocal about the need for vaccine equity and access through statements, has launched an online training in over 20 African countries to prepare local medical staff and frontline responders for the vaccine rollout, and is developing trainings on vaccine science, administration, and equitable access for frontline healthcare workers globally. You can donate to support Project HOPE’s general COVID relief work, including efforts to get everyone vaccinated.
                • ‘Shocking imbalance’ of COVID-19 vaccine distribution underscores inequity
                  May 20, 2021 – Infectious Disease News
                  The proliferation of variants is another reason to address global vaccine inequity, according to Tom Kenyon, MD, MPH, chief health officer at the international health care nonprofit Project HOPE and former director of the CDC’s Center for Global Health … Kenyon said the U.S. would be “very shortsighted” in thinking that vaccinating only Americans is going to be sufficient. “COVID-19 is a very dangerous disease spread through respiratory droplets and cannot be adequately controlled locally if it remains unchecked globally,” he said. “It’s dangerous for any country or community to behave as though it’s in the clear if the science, numbers and facts say the opposite. It is not only our human imperative to make vaccines accessible to all countries faster and in sufficient quantities, but it is also in our public health interest to further minimize the emergence of variants that could render vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics less effective.”
                • Here’s How Long It Will be Until We Reach Herd Immunity, According to Doctors 
                  May 20, 2021 – Parade
                  Vaccine hesitancy is part of the problem, and as we race to vaccinate people against new variants that are emerging, those who are unsure about the vaccine are making scientists worry about how realistic reaching herd immunity actually is. “We know from experience with other vaccination programs that reaching the first 50 percent of a population is the easier part,” Dr. Tom Kenyon, MD, the chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of global health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tells Parade.com. “The second 50% gets tougher. Here, we face more pockets of hesitancy and difficult-to-reach vulnerable populations, and that’s where the major health inequities come into play.”
                • Africa needs vaccines and financial aid
                  May 20, 2021 – Cornwall Standard-Freeholder
                  According to Project HOPE, a humanitarian non-governmental organization that works in more than 25 countries to bolster local health systems, the COVID crisis in India will have a major impact on vaccination campaigns in Africa. “With disruption to the manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccine doses by the Serum Institute of India, low- and middle-income countries expected to receive vaccine supplies through COVAX will face delays and shortage in the coming months, increasing the risk of new infection waves,” Rabih Torbay, Project HOPE president and CEO, is quoted as saying in a statement posted on the NGO’s website. “African countries, of which many are dependent on COVAX, are a major concern as new coronavirus variants have proliferated across southern and eastern Africa, exacerbating the challenge of bringing the pandemic under control. Africa is the world’s least-vaccinated continent.”
                • Why Some People Are Choosing Not to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine
                  May 19, 2021 – Shape
                  Continuing to having open and honest conversations with friends or family members who might feel iffy about getting the COVID-19 vaccine is one of the best ways to help encourage vaccination, according to the CDC. At the end of the day, however, those who are unvaccinated are likely to stay that way. “We know from experience with other vaccination programs that reaching the first 50 percent of a population is the easier part,” Tom Kenyon, M.D., chief health office at Project HOPE and former director of Global Health at the CDC, said in a recent statement. “The second 50 percent gets tougher.”
                • US Boosting Exports of Coronavirus Vaccines
                  May 17, 2021 – VOA News
                  “At the current rate, it is likely that only 10% of people in the majority of poor countries will be vaccinated in the next year,” according to Dr. Tom Kenyon. “Amidst vast supplies of COVID-19 vaccines held by wealthy nations, including the United States, it has become unethical to withhold vaccines any longer from high-risk groups, such as global health workers in marginalized communities and countries who put their lives on the line daily to care for the sick, and are themselves dying at alarming rates.” Kenyon, a former global health director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the United States “is very short-sighted if we think that vaccinating only Americans is going to be sufficient. COVID-19 is a very dangerous disease spread through respiratory droplets and cannot be controlled locally if it remains unchecked globally.”
                • Holiday House and Project HOPE Partner to Celebrate ‘And Then Came Hope’
                  May 13, 2021 – Publishers Weekly
                  Stephen Savage’s latest picture book, And Then Came Hope, represents a heartwarming meshing of past and present, of nonfiction and fiction. Released this month by Holiday House’s Neal Porter Books, it tells a story based on the SS HOPE, a 20th-century American hospital ship, and delivers a message of hope and healing that resonates deeply today. To elevate the topic of child health and wellness, the publisher is partnering with Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian organization dedicated to carrying on the legacy of the historic ship by providing health care, training, and resources in countries affected by marginalized health systems, health crises, conflicts, and natural disasters.
                • How You Encourage Others to Get Vaccinated Makes a Big Difference
                  May 13, 2021 – Healthline
                  Dr. Tom Kenyon, former director of the Center for Global Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and chief health officer at Project HOPE, said experts know from experience with other vaccination programs that reaching the first 50 percent of a population is the easier part. “The second 50 percent gets tougher,” Kenyon told Healthline. “Here, we face more pockets of hesitancy and difficult-to-reach vulnerable populations, and that’s where the major health inequities come into play. The most important public message is: Get vaccinated as soon as you have access.” Kenyon said getting vaccinated is a “tremendous service to yourself, your children, your co-workers, and your country.”
                • India’s COVID-19 Outbreak and Its Global Impact
                  May 12, 2021 – theSkimm
                  A big way to help countries (like India) that are still reeling from COVID-19 is by donating to organizations working on the frontlines. Here are some orgs to consider supporting…Project HOPE: The org has distributed over 14 million pieces of PPE, provided training for tens of thousands of health care workers and frontline personnel, and reached more than 150 countries during the pandemic. It’s also teaming up with local partners and gov officials in India to get and distribute PPE, oxygen, ICU equipment, ventilators, and other critical items.
                • An explainer on the COVID-19 situation in India and how you can help
                  May 11, 2021 – Fashion Journal
                  The best way you can help India is by donating. This allows for resources and aid to be allocated across the country. Below, we’ve listed a range of organisations that are working to improve the dire situation. Project HOPE: Supplying ICU equipment, ventilators, oxygen supplies and PPE, Project Hope is collaborating with government officials to ensure the most critical hospitals are allocated with resources.
                • 12 Ways To Help People Affected By The Pandemic Worldwide
                  May 10, 2021 – Bustle
                  Here’s a list of organizations that are currently accepting help during the pandemic, along with other ways you can make a difference: Project HOPE is delivering PPE to hospitals, training in-line health workers for the frontline and educating communities on how to stop the spread of the virus. Donate a one-time or monthly gift here.
                • The human-focused startups of the hellfire
                  May 9, 2021 – TechCrunch
                  Most fields have linear approaches to training. But how do you train someone to respond to emergencies? There’s a need to scale up best practices rapidly across the world. Tom Cotter, director of emergency response and preparedness at Project HOPE, a nonprofit that empowers local healthcare workers in disaster-stricken and impoverished areas, said that in the context of COVID-19, “a lot of what was going to be needed [early on] was training — there were huge information gaps at the clinical level, how to communicate it at a community level.” The organization developed a curriculum with Brown University’s Watson Institute in the form of interactive PowerPoints that were ultimately used to train 100,000 healthcare workers on the new virus, according to Cotter.
                • This Is How To Stay Safe When You Travel After The Pandemic
                  May 8, 2021 – Forbes
                  It may be impossible to stay completely safe when you travel this year. At least, that’s what experts say. “This pandemic is far from over,” warns Project HOPE’s Chief Health Officer Tom Kenyon. “To get back to normal, we still need to remain in a pandemic emergency mode, for the most part. It is more important now than ever to get vaccinated, wear masks when around the unvaccinated, socially distance ourselves from others, and practice good hygiene.”
                • The Weekly Covet: COVID Relief for India
                  May 7, 2021 – Town & Country
                  The brands to shop and organizations to donate to in an effort to provide relief to the ongoing COVID crisis in India: “Project HOPE is accepting donations to support their efforts in minimizing the spread of Covid in India. They are working tirelessly to make sure communities hit the hardest are provided with not only much needed medical supplies but also necessary education on what they can do to help stop the spread in their day-to-day.” -Dania Ortiz, Fashion and Accessories Director
                • An On-the-Ground View of India’s Pandemic Fight
                  May 7, 2021 – U.S. News & World Report
                  In early 2021, India seemed to have COVID-19 contained, with cases dropping markedly by late January. But by mid-March, the pandemic surged to crisis levels, with reports of daily new infections in India spiking past 400,000 by May 5. Alok Mohanty is coordinating the emergency response with Project HOPE on the ground in the state of Odisha.
                • How COVID-19 Vaccination Improved Nurses’ Workdays
                  May 6, 2021 – U.S. News & World Report
                  The Navajo Nation has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. On Jan. 8, Lisa Bartleson, a volunteer crisis nurse for Project HOPE, received her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine at Northern Navajo Medical Center in Shiprock, New Mexico, where she spent six weeks this past winter. For Bartleson, receiving the vaccine hasn’t really changed how she does her job. “I still take the same precautions,” she says. “Partly in solidarity with those still vulnerable to the virus and partly because there is still a lot to learn about COVID-19.” In addition, she says, “I still wear a mask everywhere in public and continue to practice good hand hygiene. I also still avoid crowded areas.”
                • Take A Chance: Interview with Rabih Torbay, Presdient and CEO of Project HOPE
                  May 6, 2021 – Adam Mendler Blog
                  I recently went one on one with Rabih Torbay, President and CEO of Project HOPE. Rabih leads a global team of over 1,000 – implementing 64 active programs across over 25 countries – and has worked extensively responding to humanitarian crises including in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, and the United States.
                • How to help India during its devastating COVID-19 crisis
                  May 5, 2021 – CBS News
                  Amid calls to aid the country, the world is stepping up. For those looking for a way to contribute directly to relief efforts, below is a list of some of the organizations seeking donations that are providing oxygen, food, medical supplies, PPE and other forms of support to India: Project HOPE is working with the Indian government to deliver medical supplies to the country’s hardest-hit areas, train frontline health workers and educate communities on COVID and how to stop the spread.
                • The COVID-19 crisis in India is getting worse. Here’s how you can help.
                  May 5, 2021 – Boston.com
                  If you’re looking for ways to help amid India’s COVID crisis, we’ve gathered a list of organizations named by local thought leaders, doctors, scholars, and our Boston.com community. Project HOPE: Project Hope works to provide resources to health care workers across the globe. Their work has distributed over 14 million pieces of PPE since the start of the pandemic and aided 150 countries. To procure aid to India during this time, the project is working with local governments in India to make sure they get the supplies needed with a call for donations.
                • How to help India during its COVID surge — 12 places you can donate
                  May 4, 2021 – PBS News
                  People around the world are rallying to get India the supplies and support it needs. Here’s how you can help: Organizations that fund and provide medical supplies like oxygen and PPE: Project HOPE is a global aid organization that is distributing medical supplies in India and educating communities on how to stop COVID-19 from spreading. You can donate here.
                • How you can help India during its horrific COVID-19 crisis
                  May 3, 2021 – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
                  India is facing the world’s worst COVID-19 outbreak right now, reporting 400,000 cases in just one day for the first time on Saturday. But the country needs more than just medical personnel. It needs supplies. Personal protective equipment, both suits and masks, are critical for front-line workers. You can donate to these organizations who are providing supplies: Project HOPE is providing ventilators and ICU equipment, in addition to PPE, to areas of greatest need.
                • Data was the new oil, until the oil caught fire
                  May 2, 2021 – TechCrunch
                  If only data for disasters could be processed so easily. Unfortunately, standardization is a challenge at all scales. Globally, countries mostly lack interoperability, although standards are improving over time. Tom Cotter, director of emergency response and preparedness at health care disaster response organization Project HOPE, said that even setting up communications between responders can be challenging in an international environment. “Some countries allow certain platforms but not others, and it is constantly changing,” he said. “I basically have every single technology communication platform you can possibly have in one place.”…AI today is helping a bit with resilience planning and disaster recovery and not so much during emergency response itself, but there is certainly more to come across the entire cycle. Cotter of Project HOPE similarly noted that faster data processing translates to better responses. “Ultimately speed is what saves lives in these disasters,” he said. We’re “also able to manage more responses remotely [and] don’t have to send as many people downrange,” giving response teams more leverage in resource-constrained environments.
                • What To Know About The Growing Debate Over COVID-19 Vaccine Patents And Equity
                  May 2, 2021 – The Huffington Post
                  Global vaccine equity affects everyone, even if you’ve already been vaccinated. “The only way to control this pandemic is vaccination. So until we have global coverage, we won’t have control,” said Dr. Thomas Kenyon, chief health officer for Project HOPE and former director of global health for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Essentially, the longer it takes for people around the world to get vaccinated, the longer the pandemic will disrupt lives and livelihoods. “The economic losses are staggering and the longer this continues the more those will occur,” Kenyon said, adding: “And it’s a real, real threat to sustainable development goals.” The big takeaway is that vaccine equity is both a short-term and a long-term problem. “I think in the long term, we’re going to see efforts by countries, by regions, to manufacture their own vaccine, because they see they can’t rely on the global market,” Kenyon said.

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      April

      • • • • • • The coronavirus is ravaging India. Here’s how you can help
                  April 30, 2021 – CNN
                  The global community is rallying to help India push back against the pandemic, with countries around the world offering aid. You can help, too. Here’s how. To donate to any of the charities mentioned in this article, click the button below or here. Provide PPE: Project HOPE is working with government officials to deliver medical supplies, including PPE, ventilators and ICU equipment, to areas of greatest need.
                • 10 Places to Donate to Help India Amid the COVID Crisis
                  April 30, 2021 – The Strategist
                  India is facing a deadly second-wave coronavirus outbreak, with official infection rates topping 300,000 cases a day and epidemiologists saying the actual number is probably much higher. If you are looking to help, the most effective way is by donating money to organizations both international and on the ground in India. We’ve compiled a list of organizations where you can donate to help with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Project HOPE: This U.S.-based global health nonprofit is working with local partners to provide PPE and critically needed medical equipment to help front-line health-care workers fight the spread of COVID-19.
                • How To Help India Amid The Covid Crisis
                  April 29, 2021 – The New York Times
                  Charities, volunteers and businesses in India and beyond are trying to help the country’s COVID victims and frontline workers. Here are a few ways to help: Project HOPE, also in Maryland, is a nonprofit providing medical training, health education and humanitarian assistance around the world. The group says it has given COVID-related assistance in 150 countries during the pandemic, including India.
                • How to Help India During the COVID-19 Pandemic No Matter Where You Are in the World
                  April 29, 2021 – Travel + Leisure
                  As COVID-19 cases continue to soar in India, organizations all over the globe are mobilizing to help. Here’s how you can offer support. Project HOPE is also collecting donations to help it secure PPE and medicine in India.
                • COVID-19 cases surge globally
                  April 29, 2021 – Devex
                  “What’s underway in India is of tragic, nightmarish proportions. It’s the worst-case scenario that everyone imagined,” said Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE. On Sunday, India’s neighbor Nepal hit its highest daily figure of new cases this year. The country saw a biweekly increase in reported infections of 550%, IFRC said. “Nepal is highest on our list for being on the brink,” said Project HOPE’s Kenyon, adding that both India and Nepal recently had religious festivals, with people visiting the former for celebrations likely returning to the latter with the coronavirus. “Nepal has a much weaker health system than India. They have a major shortage of health care workers … and a much lower per capita expenditure on health care than India,” he said. “I am very concerned about Nepal.” “An escalation of cases can occur anywhere, and that’s why we have to be vigilant. Nobody predicted India would happen. … Nobody would have predicted this explosive catastrophe that they are now trying to deal with,” Kenyon said.
                • How to help support COVID-19 relief in India
                  April 28, 2021 – Mashable
                  A hard-hitting second wave of coronavirus has reached India, with the country reporting record pandemic numbers and 17.9 million total COVID cases. Just like last year, the crisis is galvanizing people online. Here are a few other organizations facilitating COVID-19 relief efforts on the ground: Project HOPE: Project HOPE is a nonprofit supporting healthcare workers and emergency medical responses around the world. It’s currently working with a network of civil society organizations across India to distribute additional oxygen tanks, ICU beds, PPE, and COVID decontamination units. The organization created an India-specific donation portal for those wanting to contribute to the team’s efforts.
                • Countdown to Herd Immunity: The Fight to Get People Vaccinated for COVID-19
                  April 27, 2021 – Healthline
                  Taking a cultural approach: Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization, partnered with Indian Health Services (IHS) to distribute vaccines to Navajo Nation. Vaccine sites were set up at hospitals and clinics along with community gathering spots like chapter houses. Harley Jones, senior manager of domestic emergency response with Project HOPE, said IHS took a cultural approach when messaging the benefits of vaccination, “positioning the fight against the pandemic and getting the vaccine as something that everyone should do to support their friends and neighbors.” The use of personal protective equipment, social distancing, and vaccinations were positioned in a way that gave everyone within the tribe a way to support the group, especially the elders, who faced higher risk for complications from COVID-19. In Navajo culture, elders are revered as the “history, health, and strength” of the tribe, said Jones. The tribe mobilized to protect the group as a whole.
                • States have plenty of vaccines but overcoming hesitancy is only one challenge
                  April 26, 2021 – WJLA
                  “The U.S. is very shortsighted if we think that vaccinating only Americans is going to be sufficient,” said Dr. Tom Kenyon, the chief health officer at Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian organization. “The global vaccine inequity needs to be addressed because it is the right thing to do from a humanitarian standpoint,” Kenyon continued, “but also to prevent the global proliferation of other variants that threaten the usefulness of current diagnostic tests, therapies and vaccines.”
                • Hope for COVID-19 Herd Immunity Is Fading. Here’s Why
                  April 25, 2021 – Healthline
                  Analyzing the numbers through a U.S. lens shows signs of clear progress. But global numbers are a different story. Dr. Tom Kenyon, the chief health officer at Project HOPE and a Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) trained epidemiologist who spent more than 2 decades at the CDC, told Healthline that vaccinations have been working. But he noted that we have a long way to go. “We should not let ourselves be misled by this early domestic progress when the majority of Americans remain unvaccinated — and when only 3 percent of the global population has been fully vaccinated,” he said. Kenyon noted that, at current vaccination rates, only 10 percent of people in the majority of developing countries will be vaccinated in the next year. “The global vaccine inequity needs to be addressed because it is the right thing to do from a humanitarian standpoint but also to prevent the global proliferation of other variants that threaten the usefulness of current diagnostic tests, therapies, and vaccines,” he said.
                • Millions of Americans are skipping their second dose of COVID vaccine
                  April 25, 2021 – CBS Weekend News
                  A CBS News poll finds just more than half of the people surveyed are hesitant to get a shot and feel more testing is needed. Meanwhile, the CDC says more than 5 million Americans have not received their second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Tom Kenyon, Project HOPE’s Chief Health Officer and former CDC Director of Global Health said, “The fact that 8% of Americans have missed their second shot is, of course, concerning, but it’s not unexpected.”
                • ‘Whenever We Back Off From This Disease it Comes Back and It’s Doing it With Vengeance in India’ Says Chief Health Officer at Project HOPE
                  April 23, 2021 – Cheddar
                  India reported the world’s highest daily rate of coronavirus cases for a second day in a row, breaking its own record. The country confirmed more than 330,000 new infections on Friday alone. For more on the dire situation in the country, we spoke to Dr. Tom Kenyon, Chief Health Officer at Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian organization, and former Director of Global Health at the CDC.
                • Covid-19 en Afrique subsaharienne : les futures mamans sont davantage privées de soins
                  April 23, 2021 – France Info
                  D’après une récente étude publiée par le Fonds des Nations unies pour la population (FNUAP) entre février et avril 2020 par rapport à la même période l’année précédente, “il a été constaté une augmentation de 96% du nombre de décès maternels au Kenya, 28% au Bostwana et 18% au Mozambique”, affirme Hajer Naili, porte-parole de l’ONG américaine Project Hope qui intervient dans le domaine de la santé maternelle dans plusieurs pays africains. Le nombre de mort-nés a aussi “considérablement augmenté au Soudan du Sud” : une hausse de “169%”. Avec le Tchad et la Sierra Leone, le pays compte parmi ceux qui ont enregistré plus de 1 000 décès maternels pour 100 000 naissances vivantes en 2017, les plus importants au monde.
                • The Biggest Barriers to COVID-19 Vaccination—and How to Break Them Down
                  April 22, 2021 – Parents
                  Support organizations making a difference: Organizations around the country are already doing some of the heavy lifting to break down vaccination barriers. Considering volunteering or donating to nonprofits like Project HOPE that have been helping with the global response to COVID-19.
                • ¿Cómo será el mundo tras la pandemia? Pistas para adentrarnos en el futuro del trabajo, los viajes o las vacunas
                  April 18, 2021 – Univision
                  “Entre las muchas lecciones que dejará la pandemia quizá la más duradera sea la interconexión que ha demostrado el mundo: cómo un virus que comenzó en una sola ciudad puede afectarnos a todos en cuestión de momentos”, señala Rabih Torbay, presidente de la organización internacional de salud Proyecto HOPE. “Todos conocemos a alguien que ha tenido el virus o hemos visto de primera mano los trágicos estragos que puede causar. Si queremos avanzar hacia un mundo más equitativo, no podemos olvidar esta lección”. Cuando esto haya pasado, tendremos que elegir, sostiene Torbay. “Podemos volver a las andadas o aceptar que debemos hacerlo mejor. Podemos vivir aislados, velando solo por nuestros propios intereses, o trabajar juntos para resolver estos problemas globales”.
                • Vaccinated travelers should still avoid eating and drinking on planes, experts say
                  April 16, 2021 – The Washington Post
                  “The crowding on the plane is going to be an issue,” says Tom Kenyon, Project HOPE’s chief health officer who spent 21 years at the CDC. “We know that the closer you are to someone with an infectious disease that’s respiratory transmitted, the more likely you are to get infected. It’s not transmitted through the ventilation system; it’s transmitted through direct contact.” Kenyon’s advice for vaccinated fliers is to be vigilant about wearing your mask (potentially an N95), use disinfectant on your hands after touching surfaces and consider wearing a face shield as the coronavirus can be transmitted through the surface of the eye. “At some point, you have to take off your mask to take a drink or have a meal, especially on a long flight – which can put you at risk because everybody does it at once. So I think a face shield would be in order.”
                • COVID-19 raises fears of increased women mortality rate
                  April 13, 2021 – Anadolu Agency
                  The COVID-19 restrictions have severely impacted health services for pregnant women and new moms in Africa as many of them lost their lives amid curfew restrictions, a humanitarian NGO has voiced. “In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, curfews imposed in certain African countries made it difficult for pregnant women to reach clinics and/or hospitals after curfew time,” Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization, said in its report.
                • The deadly consequences of an uneven vaccine rollout
                  April 12, 2021 – Al Jazeera’s The Take podcast
                  US President Joe Biden has promised every American adult they will be eligible for a COVID vaccination by April 19th. But what about the rest of the world? Only 0.01% of all vaccines distributed have gone to the developing world and now Kenya is being a hit by its 3rd wave of the virus. Many complain COVAX, the vaccine program run by the WHO, isn’t distributing the vaccine quick enough and AstraZeneca has been peppered with problems. Meanwhile, hospitals are running out of oxygen, beds are filling up and people are dying without the vaccine. In this episode: Dr. Tom Kenyon, Chief Health Officer, Project HOPE and former Director of Global Health, US Centers for Disease Control.
                • How Remote Working During Covid Is Changing Crisis Management
                  April 11, 2021 – Forbes
                  Training remote workers how prepare for and respond to a crisis has become more difficult for some organizations than others. Andrea Dunne-Sosa, is a regional director of the Americas for Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian organization. She said that, “While working remotely transformed the way we respond to global health and humanitarian emergencies, it prompted crisis responders to innovate and collaborate in extraordinary ways.” She said that by developing a COVID-19 Training for Health Care Workers, collaborators at Brown University, Disaster Ready, and Project HOPE leveraged tech and teaching best practices to reach more than 95,000 health care workers who speak nine languages in 55 countries. “The training program enables us to virtually cross borders to support health care workers on the local level worldwide at an unprecedented scale through times of urgent global need. Building on the virtual training model above, collaborators at Brown University, Africa CDC, and Project HOPE to date have reached 28 African countries and more than 500 health workers with online training to ensure local health leaders are prepared as Covid-19 vaccines become available,” Dunne-Sosa said.
                • Biden eyes bigger US role in global vaccination efforts
                  April 10, 2021 – The Hill
                  Tom Kenyon chief health officer at Project HOPE, a global health organization, said the appointment of Smith, and the remarks by Yellen and Blinken, is a sign the administration will eventually move to start sharing vaccines. “But I think we have to move beyond the promise, to action,” Kenyon said. “This is a pandemic, and it’s an emergency.” Kenyon said the U.S. should have already been sending surplus supplies to help other countries protect their health workers. “This is a public health endeavor, not a diplomatic endeavor alone. We need diplomacy, but we need public health action,” Kenyon said.
                • Researchers identify five new cases of ‘double mutant’ Covid variant in California
                  April 8, 2021 – CNBC
                  Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE and former director of global health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said scientists are finding more mutations, at least in part, because new CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky directed the agency to increase surveillance. “So the more that we look for these, the more we’re going to find them,” he said. “There’s something about the world ‘double’ that scares people and makes it sound like it’s double bad,” Kenyon said in an interview. “Any mutation affecting transmissibility or viral replication would be dangerous.”
                • COVID-19 road to recovery still very long with just 3 percent vaccinated globally
                  April 7, 2021 – Al Arabiya English
                  While immunization programs in major countries have been making headway in the fight against COVID-19, their collective progress on a global scale is not so significant, with only three percent of the world’s population vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, humanitarian NGO Project HOPE chief health officer said. “We should not let ourselves be misled by this early domestic progress when the majority of Americans remain unvaccinated and when only three percent of the global population has been fully vaccinated,” said the NGO’s chief health officer Dr. Tom Kenyon in a press statement released on Tuesday.
                • ‘Pandemic far from over’: Warning as only 3% of people vaccinated globally
                  April 6, 2021 – Independent
                  The coronavirus pandemic is far from over and “crushing waves of new cases are on the horizon” if countries abandon public health precautions, a top medical expert has warned. Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE, a humanitarian NGO, said that despite strong progress in vaccinating against the pandemic, only 3 per cent of the global population has been fully vaccinated. He added that in higher income countries 56 per cent of doses have been administered, but only around 10 per cent of people in lower-income countries will be inoculated in the next year.
                • ‘We’re defeated’: Climate migrants fleeing storm-stricken Central America struggle to find refuge
                  April 5, 2021 – NBC News
                  Marco Antonio Suazo, a consultant for Project HOPE, an international global health organization, said that “the impact has been tremendous.” “There are still homes destroyed, areas full of mud from the floods,” he said. “Many people have also lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Now we see almost entire families where fathers, mothers and children mobilize to pursue a dream but don’t know the risks, their health conditions or the language.”
                • Vaccine Watch: Cuba develops its own COVID-19 vaccines
                  April 1, 2021 – ABC News Live
                  “Only about 3% of the global population is fully vaccinated…if the virus is allowed to proliferate unchecked, we know now that new variants can develop and have consequences for us down the road,” says Dr. Tom Kenyon, Chief Health Officer at Project HOPE.

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      March

      • • • • • • ‘I’m Helping Beirut Medics Recover From an Unthinkable Year’
                  March 31, 2021 – Newsweek
                  “I was born, raised and currently live in Beirut,” Project HOPE’s Associate Project Coordinator for Mental Health, Rawan Hamadeh, writes in this commentary. “I hold a master’s degree in health care management, but I went directly into the humanitarian field because I graduated just when the Syrian crisis hit. I first worked in the health sector, and then specifically in mental health with the National Mental Health Programme at the Ministry of Public Health. I later moved to Washington, D.C. and joined Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization, where I am responsible for leading global mental health programs and resiliency trainings for frontline health care workers responding to COVID-19.”
                • A little research leads one Marbleheader to a lot of hope
                  March 31, 2021 – Wicked Local
                  Maia Yulov is a traveler so when the COVID-19 restrictions took effect, she began to get antsy. “I was sitting around going crazy,” she admits. A nurse by trade, she works with United Healthcare and like many employees has been doing so from home for the last year. Yulov also loves to volunteer in her spare time and thought despite the pandemic, there must be something she could do. “So I did some research and I found Project HOPE,” she said. “What amazed me was their turnaround time, from application to deployment, it was impressive.” Project HOPE is “dedicated to placing power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe.”
                • “No queremos robar nada sino tener un futuro”: migrantes climáticos buscan el sueño americano pero son retornados a México
                  March 28, 2021 – Noticias Telemundo
                  “El impacto ha sido tremendo”, explicó Marco Antonio Suazo, consultor de la organización Project HOPE. “Aún hay viviendas destruidas, sectores llenos de lodo como los dejó la inundación. Además, muchas personas perdieron sus empleos por la pandemia”, añadió. “Ahora vemos a familias casi enteras donde padres, madres e hijos se movilizan para perseguir un sueño pero no saben los riesgos, ni sus condiciones de salud o el idioma. Somos países muy pobres donde el horizonte de la mayoría de las personas es Estados Unidos”, asevera Suazo.
                • Dreaming of summer travel? Post reporters answer your travel questions.
                  March 26, 2021 – The Washington Post
                  The CDC is still advising against non-essential travel at this time. That being said, we know that the word “essential” means something different for everyone. If you do decide to take the trip, do it as safely as possible. According to the health experts I’ve interviewed, that means getting vaccinated before traveling. Project HOPE’s Chief Health Officer, Dr. Tom Kenyon, who spent 21 years at the CDC (most recently as the Director for the Center for Global Health), told me people should hold off on traveling until you’ve been fully vaccinated.
                • Where Can You Travel if You’re Vaccinated?
                  March 26, 2021 – U.S. News & World Report
                  Though vaccinated travelers will surely be safer than their unvaccinated counterparts when it comes to sharing public spaces like airplanes, vaccinated people should take special care when traveling, according to Dr. Tom Kenyon, the chief health officer at Project HOPE, an international global health and humanitarian organization. While the top-notch air filtration systems on airplanes and mask requirements lessen the concern of in-flight virus transmission, travelers should know “the situation you’re traveling to is more important than the flight,” Kenyon said. Vaccinated individuals can likely still bring disease (coronavirus and others) into other states and countries by traveling there. Beating the coronavirus is a global effort as much as it is a nationwide concern, Kenyon added, saying, “we’ll never control [the virus] here if it’s left uncontrolled everywhere else.” Vaccinated individuals should continue to practice safety measures, including social distancing, hand-washing and mask-wearing while traveling, according to the CDC.
                • People Who Talk to Their Doctors Are More Likely to Get Vaccines
                  March 26, 2021 – Verywell Health
                  Thomas Kenyon, MD, MPH, the chief health officer of Project HOPE and the former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director of the Center for Global Health, tells Verywell that dispelling misinformation about COVID-19 plays a role in addressing vaccine hesitancy and other concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine. “We are seeing vaccine hesitancy decline over time as more people receive the vaccine and skeptics are more assured by additional information and seeing that it is safe,” Kenyon tells Verywell. “That said, a long history of racism, unethical research, and under-representation in clinical trials leaves communities of color in the U.S. and U.K. more skeptical of government COVID-19 vaccine programs.”
                • Mexico’s Youth Connect and Protect Communities in COVID-19 Fight
                  March 25, 2021 – U.S. News & World Report
                  Andrea Dunne-Sosa, Regional Director of the Americas for Project HOPE, and Yarishdy Mora, Country Director of Mexico for Project HOPE, co-write this op-ed, opening with, “As the world passes the one-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic, a global health crisis that has caused millions of deaths and impacted communities across the world, it’s natural for fear and uncertainty to dim daily lives. But by studying examples of how some regions are advancing hope through innovation, the global community has much reason for optimism. One standout case comes from Mexico – the story of what’s possible when we invest in one of our most important resources: young people.”
                • Helping the helpless: Brown University’s Dr. Ruhul Abid brings health care to Rohingya refugees
                  March 25, 2021 – The Boston Globe
                  A series of virtual COVID-19 training, coordinated by Brown University students in partnership with Project HOPE, were given to hundreds of health care providers at the camps and across 20 different organizations throughout Bangladesh. Building patient-physician trust is essential to delivering meaningful care to the Rohingya. It’s a critical lesson that can be used to support health, and goodwill, in our own vulnerable communities, said Dr. Ruhul Abid.
                • Summer travelers grapple with a vaccine gap
                  March 24, 2021 – The Washington Post
                  Experts say there is an assumption that vaccines will eliminate travel-related risks of infection by the coronavirus. But they won’t. “Vaccines are not a silver bullet that will simply switch off the pandemic overnight,” explains Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE, an international health-care organization. “It will take time before we see the impact of the vaccine and life returns to normal.” In other words, your risk of infection does not depend entirely on whether the people you encounter on your travels are vaccinated or not. There are other factors at play, including your age, behavior and medical history.
                • Weaponisation of aid contributes to death of Yemenis
                  March 23, 2021 – Al Jazeera
                  Rabih Torbay, President and CEO of Project HOPE, and Dr. Zaher Sahloul, President and Co-Founder of MedGlobal, co-write this op-ed, opening with, “Six years into a devastating conflict, Yemen is at a tipping point and civilians are paying the price of war. More than 18,500 civilians have been killed or injured since March 2015 according to the Yemen Data Project, and at least 3.6 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to conflict. Horrifically, more than 80 percent of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance. As long as fighting continues and warring actors refuse to silence their guns, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen will persist. Yemen and its health system are on the verge of collapse.”
                • Reds pitcher steps up to plate for Native Americans during pandemic
                  March 17, 2021 – FOX19
                  According to the CDC, Native Americans face the highest hospitalization rate of COVID-19 of any race or ethnicity in the country. Brandon Bailey discovered that from watching the news earlier this year. Coming from an indigenous family, he says he knew he had to do something to help. Bailey called his agent to see what he could do. The agency put him in contact with Project HOPE, an organization that’s been providing medical assistance to Native Americans during COVID-19. The Reds pitcher then made a video spreading awareness and encouraging others to donate to the project.
                • Making a World of Difference
                  March 15, 2021 – Hemispheres Magazine
                  Project HOPE volunteers include both retired medical professionals and full-time healthcare workers who are willing to give up their free time to continue caring for patients. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Project HOPE has used miles to send medical volunteers to Chicago, Houston, and Shiprock, New Mexico, in the Navajo Nation. Volunteers have tested people for COVID-19, treated patients in ICUs, conducted contact tracing, and administered vaccines. “The staff at the Northern Navajo Medical Center was wonderful but greatly overstretched,” says Beryl Brooks, a Project HOPE volunteer nurse. “We were able to lighten the workload of the nursing staff, which enabled the patients to receive more personalized daily hours of care and more personalized care as a result. People hospitalized with COVID-19 are very sick and need frequent interventions to improve outcomes. I believe that our being there helped that happen.”
                • In the shadow of its exceptionalism, America fails to invest in the basics
                  March 13, 2021 – The Washington Post
                  The United States accounts for just four percent of the world’s population but 20% of worldwide coronavirus deaths. A disproportionate share are poor or people of color. “Covid-19 laid bare how systematic inequities exist in this country,” said Rabih Torbay, president and CEO of Bethesda, Md.-based Project Hope, an international medical relief organization that provides assistance primarily in war-torn and disaster-ravaged nations, but also increasingly works in the United States. “Where you have the best hospitals and where you don’t, where you have the best health care and where you don’t,” Torbay said.
                • ‘Never again’: the race to prevent the next pandemic
                  March 11, 2021 – The Telegraph
                  Tom Kenyon is a former director of global health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He’s now at the NGO Project HOPE, but he remembers the ebb and flow of interest in pandemics well. “Another pandemic is imminent, it could be happening now,” he said. “I know we’re not ready, although maybe we are better prepared. But if you look at what happened after Ebola, there was a temporary influx of resources from the US government and then we backed off. But strengthening these systems takes time and if you use them regularly to detect when something is out of the ordinary, you can then investigate and respond accordingly, and scale up when something big comes along.”
                • Indian Health Services Is an Unsung Hero of the COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout
                  March 11, 2021 – Verywell Health
                  Others agree that IHS has shined throughout the public health crisis. “A cultural, all-hands approach and vaccine messaging have propelled Indian Health Services (IHS) to be a beacon of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Harley Jones, MA, senior manager of domestic emergency response for Project HOPE, tells Verywell. “IHS began vaccine preparation early on, creating an emergency response system to oversee their rollout, and they involved everyone.” Project HOPE partnered with IHS to provide pandemic support to the Navajo Nation. Volunteers with the organization have been helping the Navajo IHS area, which serves over 244,000 American Indians across Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, with vaccine rollout.
                • Se cumple un año de la declaración de pandemia: ¿actuó demasiado tarde la OMS?
                  March 11, 2021 – Univision
                  Tom Kenyon, director de salud de Project HOPE, una organización mundial de ayuda humanitaria y de salud advierte por su parte que la próxima pandemia similar a covid-19 podría ocurrir en cualquier momento. “Antes de que lo haga, es fundamental que EEUU establezca un programa nacional para entregar rápidamente nuevas vacunas eficaces para evitar niveles catastróficos de mortalidad, destrucción económica, agitación social e inseguridad”, dice este experto, que señala que el próximo nuevo virus pandémico podría ser aún más transmisible y letal.
                • One Year After The Pandemic: Moving Forward with Project HOPE
                  March 11, 2021 – Good Day LA
                  One year ago today the WHO declared covid-19 a global pandemic. Since then Covid-19 has changed nearly every aspect of life on the planet. Globally, more than 100-million people have been infected and 2-million have died. Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian organization was one of the first groups to respond to the virus’ epicenter in Wuhan, China. Their members have seen first-hand the impact of the virus. Project HOPE’s Executive VP, Chris Skopec discusses where we are now and how we can move forward out of this pandemic.
                • 1 in 22 Nigerian Women Die While Having a Baby. How Can We Stop This?
                  March 10, 2021 – Global Citizen
                  Nigeria is home to 20% of all maternal deaths in the world — at least 800 of every 100,000 live births lead to the death of the mother. Global Citizen spoke with Dr. Uche Ralph-Opara, Nigeria country representative and senior advisor for systems strengthening at Project HOPE, an international global health and humanitarian organisation, about the challenges and solutions to maternal health care in Nigeria. “In my opinion, some of the biggest challenges faced by Nigerian women in accessing maternal health care include inequities of accessibility to health services, especially for those in rural communities where health facilities are sparsely distributed; poor health-seeking behaviours, mainly stemming from lack of education and available resources and information, poverty, socio-cultural or religious beliefs, and also affordability of health services.”
                • In Central America, women and girls bear the brunt of storm disaster fallout
                  March 9, 2021 – The New Humanitarian
                  “I don’t think the humanitarian world took this as seriously as it merited,” said Vlatko Uzevski, who led an emergency medical response team from health non-profit Project HOPE in western Honduras following the hurricanes. “There is a need there, and people need support.” Uzevski’s team was deployed to the badly hit Santa Bárbara department in anticipation of injuries and other immediate needs. Instead, they found rising gastro-intestinal issues, skin infections, and conditions ripe for a major dengue outbreak – problems all also noted by the Pan American Health Organization. “All those health issues were related to water and sanitation,” Uzevski told TNH. “Everywhere, you could see the destruction of the water systems.”
                • Wondering When It Will Be Your Turn to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine?
                  March 9, 2021 – PBS Next Avenue
                  “You have to look at risk factors and target your vaccination efforts towards that, as best you can,” said Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at Project HOPE, an international global health and humanitarian organization and publisher of the journal Health Affairs. Kenyon, a public health expert who spent 21 years with the CDC working on global health issues and infectious disease, said he understands the challenges localities are facing and the dilemma of when to open up vaccinations to new risk groups…
                  “I think we need to be as concerned about global coverage of vaccination,” said Kenyon. Not only because it’s the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective, but it’s also important to our own pandemic. “Because until the world is covered with vaccine, no place will be safe,” Kenyon noted.
                • Vaccine diplomacy: how Russia and China are using their Covid-19 jabs to win friends and influence people
                  March 8, 2021 – The Telegraph
                  Tom Kenyon, a former director of global health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and now with the NGO Project Hope, said: “Vaccines are a global good, and they should be made available irrespective of our political perspective. “We need to look at all the vaccines objectively – even the vaccines coming from China and Russia – and include them in our toolbox. I think as scientists see the data coming about efficacy and safety, they should be blind to where it’s coming from. Maybe it’s unrealistic, but that’s what we should strive for.”
                • How the Covid-19 Anniversary Might Mess With Your Head 
                  March 8, 2021 – Elemental
                  Cinira Baldi offers her experience traveling to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi one year after it was shaken by a powerful earthquake as an example. Baldi, the vice president and chief development and communications officer of humanitarian organization Project HOPE, met with two sisters who were still struggling to process that devastating day. They recounted it to her as if it happened hours rather than months earlier. “The memories are so raw, one of them told me she still sleeps outside because she’s afraid to sleep indoors,” Baldi says. “A year had passed for us, but for them, the pain and the fear are still there.” She’s been thinking about that trip as March approaches. “I think many of us are going to feel like it just happened,” she says.
                • Project embarks on virus vaccination training in Africa
                  March 4, 2021 – Anadolu Agency
                  A humanitarian group has launched online training to ensure local vaccinators in over 20 African countries are ready to do their job as COVID-19 vaccines become available. In a statement late Wednesday, US-based Project HOPE said over 140 participants from South Africa and Ethiopia last week already took the first training. “As vaccines become available, local vaccinators are racing against time to immunize as many people as possible. With these training, healthcare workers are equipped with adequate knowledge and skills to respond rapidly and safely,” said Rabih Torbay, the group’s head.
                • US charity rolls out vaccination training in 20 African countries
                  March 4, 2021 – The Telegraph
                  A US humanitarian organisation called Project HOPE is set to train Covid-19 vaccinators in more than 20 African countries, Jennifer Rigby reports. The training, developed by Project HOPE with Brown University and in conjunction with the African Centre for Disease Control, will be delivered online and aims to cover practicalities around storage and delivery as well as information about the different jabs available, as well as advice on how to answer questions from the community.
                • Covid-19 in Lebanon: Health workers yet to receive vaccines as MPs jump the queue
                  March 3, 2021 – Middle East Eye
                  “Migrants and refugees are left out of the campaign. This is a breach of the terms and conditions made by the authorities,” CEO and president of international organisation Project HOPE, Rabih Torbay, told MEE, pointing out that migrant workers and undocumented refugees are obstructed from registering for the vaccine. Torbay fears that these developments could jeopardise Lebanon’s relationship with the international community, which has provided humanitarian aid for the crisis-hit country. “This sends a terrible message to the international community that has mobilised to support Lebanon, and risks jeopardising future possibilities for financial support,” he said.

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      February

      • • • • • • Sustained Drop in Covid-19 Nursing-Home Deaths Points to Vaccinations
                  February 26, 2021 – The Wall Street Journal
                • The Leftovers: Inside The Fierce Hunt For Extra Vaccines
                  February 26, 2021 – Refinery29
                  “Vaccine wastage” is the result of how vaccine vials are prepared for use at the end of the day, explains Tom Kenyon, MD, Chief Health Officer at Project HOPE and former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Center for Global Health. Each vial of the Pfizer vaccine contains up to six doses, and is stored at -112ºF to -76ºF. To prepare one dose, the entire vial must be thawed and mixed with a saline solution. After that, the remaining doses must be used within six hours or they’ll expire. The Moderna vials contain up to 11 doses. To extract one dose, the vial’s rubber cap is punctured; then, like with Pfizer, you have six hours to use the rest. The gist: These things are ticking timebombs, only instead of exploding, they fizzle out and die.
                • COVAX: Why Biden’s billions won’t fix Covid vaccine inequality worldwide
                  February 26, 2021 – NBC News
                  Sharing immediately is not only “the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective, it is in the interest of rich countries to stop transmission everywhere,” said Dr. Tom Kenyon, a former director of the CDC’s Center for Global Health and the former CDC director for Ethiopia, now chief health officer at Project HOPE, an international global health organization.
                • How Are Rural Areas Doing with COVID-19 Vaccinations? A Look at 3 Region
                  February 25, 2021 – Healthline
                  Harley Jones, the domestic COVID-19 response lead of international health and humanitarian NGO Project HOPE, has helped coordinate the response to COVID-19 in various states by supporting frontline workers and providing additional staff to handle the surge of COVID-19 patients in hospitals and clinics. His organization has been helping with pandemic mitigation and vaccination efforts in the Navajo Nation since last summer. “Regardless of where you’re at, communication and access are key, and these are a little bit different in rural areas versus urban areas,” said Jones. “You want to make it as simple for people as you can, but then you also need to know and understand the limitations that people are going to have.”
                • Evening Edition: Lebanon Has Not Recovered From Beirut Blast
                  February 25, 2021 – Fox News Radio
                  Lebanon has been descending into poverty and chaos since an explosion rocked the capital in August with banks and hospitals in a state of collapse. What worsens the matter is the fact the Prime Minister and his cabinet stepped down following the blast and a new government is yet to be formed. FOX’s Trey Yingst speaks with Rabih Torbay, CEO & President of Project HOPE, about how NGO’s, including his own, are trying to help the country stabilize itself.
                • Are Warming Centers Safe During a Pandemic?
                  February 24, 2021 – Verywell Health
                  Many temporary shelters are limited in their ability to make modifications to the buildings that house them. Harley Jones, MA, Senior Manager, Domestic Emergency Response for international health care NGO Project HOPE, says that while hospitals can section off entire wards and implement different ventilation systems, shelters are set up in buildings that might not allow for these precautions. Jones also says people are more likely to act in response to the current danger of the Texas storms than worry about the risks of the pandemic. “Making sure you’re social distancing and making sure you’re masked sometimes falls to the wayside when you’re worrying about where you stay and eat the next day,” Jones tells Verywell. “And I think that’s human nature.”
                • Innovating post-Covid-19 crisis relief
                  February 18, 2021 – BBC Future
                  “It has become much more complicated at every level,” says Rabih Torbay, president and CEO of Project HOPE, an NGO that focuses on empowering health workers around the world to save lives. “Our ability to respond to emergencies, be able to travel, be able to deploy volunteers is challenged. In addition to that Covid-19 has caused an overlay of challenges on top of the crisis itself — and there’s a serious lack of health worker volunteers as all our medical volunteers are tied up with the Covid-19 response in their home countries.”
                • From sermons to WhatsApp messages, these Britons are trying to dispel Covid-19 myths in minority communities
                  February 12, 2021 – CNN
                  The speed of the vaccination’s development has also fueled misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine. “We need to counter misinformation with the facts as we know them in the various ways of communication at our disposal,” Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer at the Project HOPE organization, told CNN. “Eventually, the facts will prevail and increased vaccination uptake will result.”
                • Food security, agriculture remain threatened 2 months after Central American hurricanes
                  February 9, 2021 – Devex
                  In addition to impacting agricultural activity, lingering floodwaters also pose a threat to a safe water supply. Project HOPE is working with local NGOs to conduct training about water purification and how chlorine can be used to make water safe to drink. The organization is also working in the Santa Barbara department of Honduras to help increase availability of water testing, said Tom Cotter, director of emergency response and preparedness at Project HOPE. “When the hurricanes came in it really damaged the infrastructure in these communities,” Cotter said. “What we’re finding is a lot of the coliforms, the E. coli, comes from poor waste management and poor water supply. So these families, when they get water from the well, it’s been contaminated basically by sewage and that lends itself to a really dangerous situation where the water supply can make people sicker.”
                • She Advocates for Healthcare Workers’ Lives
                  February 8, 2021 – CircleAround
                  Everyone’s lives changed in one way or another because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but health care workers were among the groups impacted most. Beyond the recent crisis, health care workers are often on the frontlines, risking their lives to help those in need. Project HOPE is an organization that’s been advocating for these heroes for over 60 years. “Our mission is to place power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe,” says Cinira Baldi, vice president and chief development and communications officer for Project HOPE in the following feature Q&A.
                • Preventing queue jumping in Lebanon’s vaccine rollout needs government transparency
                  February 6, 2021 – Al Arabiya
                  President and CEO Rabih Torbay starts this op-ed stating, “As the government starts rolling out its COVID-19 vaccination program, it is imperative that vaccination is accessible to everyone in the country based on risk factors and vulnerability, and without any distinction of nationality and residency status. Government transparency will make sure no one jumps the vaccine line because of their political connections, or socio-economic status.”
                  
                • In 2020, Lebanon was spiraling. 6 months after the Beirut blast, half of the country lives below the poverty line and the health sector is crumbling.
                  February 6, 2021 – Business Insider
                  Rabih Torbay, the CEO of relief organization Project HOPE, has also raised alarms about vaccine distribution particularly for vulnerable populations in Lebanon. “We’re starting to see some concerning trends in terms of who the vaccine should go to. The government made a statement that the vaccine would go to everybody on the ground in Lebanon, and they have to make sure that it actually does because it is the obligation of the government as the host government,” Torbay said.
                • Understanding the New Strains of COVID-19
                  February 5, 2021 – U.S. News & World Report
                  Are variants more deadly? Apparently yes, but not drastically so. “To put it in perspective, for the normal COVID, the mortality rate was (about) 10 out of 1,000 cases,” says Dr. Tom Kenyon, chief health officer for Project HOPE and a former director of the CDC’s Center for Global Health. “With this new variant, it would be more up around 13 or 14 per 1,000. So, it’s a significant increase but we just don’t want the public to panic and feel like now COVID is going to be uniformly fatal. That’s not what (scientists) are saying.”

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      January

      • • • • • • • Empathy and COVID-19: Is a reset on our collective empathy possible?
                    January 31, 2021 – Psychology Today
                    “Empathy is critical and key,” agrees Cinira Baldi, Vice President and Chief Development & Communications Officer for Project HOPE, a non-governmental global health organization. “As a humanitarian worker, I’ve traveled to Jordan refugee camps, been to the border of South Sudan, met with survivors of the Indonesia 2018 tsunami… many times, I have been moved beyond words by people’s capacity for strength and resilience through conditions unthinkable to many.”
                  • Covid vaccines: Rollout in disarray in U.S. and abroad
                    January 31, 2021 – NBC News
                    In the U.S., “the rollout is slow and awkward and very frustrating for our population,” said Dr. Tom Kenyon, a former director of the CDC’s Center for Global Health. “We have a very divided approach,” said Kenyon, who is now chief health officer at Project HOPE, an international global health and humanitarian organization. “We actually have states competing with each other to get the vaccine. That’s not optimal in any sense.”
                  • What the COVID-19 Vaccine Could Mean for Future Travel
                    January 28, 2021 – Travel + Leisure
                    “Both the vaccines suggest they have 95% efficacy against severe disease, but that doesn’t mean they have 95% efficacy against infection,” Dr. Thomas Kenyon, chief health officer at Project Hope and 21-year veteran of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Travel + Leisure. “I think we’re going to have to see how the pandemic evolves. Certainly as incidents decline, your risk declines.”
                  • LEBANON’S QUAGMIRE —How many crises can a nation bear at the same time?
                    January 28, 2021 – POLITICO
                    Many young volunteers turned out to clean downtown Beirut. In many cases, without masks, said Rabih Torbay, the president and CEO of Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization that played a major role in the Lebanon response. The tragedy hit home for Torbay, who grew up in Lebanon during the country’s 15-year civil war and had family members injured in the explosion. He was in Beirut within 48 hours of the blast and said the desperation he saw on people’s faces was worse than during the war.
                  • Many Nurses on the Frontlines of COVID-19 Feel Overworked and Under-Appreciated—Here’s What Needs To Change
                    January 27, 2021 – Well + Good
                    Some organizations have worked proactively to meet the most pressing needs of their nurses. Harley Jones is the U.S. COVID-19 response lead at Project HOPE, a non-profit that empowers local health care all over the world. During the pandemic, he has been working in Navajo Nation as a liaison between volunteer doctors and nurses and the Indian Health Service. “I’ve heard time and time again how grateful people are for the volunteer nurses who come in to help with the surge in COVID-19 patients. There’s a strong feeling of support because the volunteer nurses alleviate some of the pressures the [staff nurses] are experiencing on a daily basis,” Jones says.
                  • Rebuilding in Beirut: How local members are recovering, helping others after deadly explosion
                    January 26, 2021 – The Church News
                    Latter-day Saint Charities is funding a number of other projects in Lebanon, including: Project HOPE partnered with the Rene Moawad Foundation to provide emergency health supplies, including 165 pallets of medications, syringes, bandages, gauze and N95 masks.
                  • Episode 2: Rabih Torbay, Project HOPE
                    January 25, 2021 – Charity Matters
                    The Charity Matters Podcast shares the stories of innovators, entrepreneurs and inspiring modern-day heroes who set out to solve the problems of humanity with their incredible journeys of service. Join us each week for a front-row seat to the best of humanity.
                  • How COVID-19 has changed the rules of the game in the aid sector
                    January 25, 2021 – Al Jazeera
                    As we continue to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, conducting ‘business as usual’ in the aid sector can no longer be an option, writes Rabih Torbay, President and CEO of Project HOPE, in this op-ed. “As we continue to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, conducting “business as usual” in the aid sector can no longer be an option. In fact, it would be a betrayal to the people and communities we seek to help. We cannot keep using old tricks for new challenges. We have here a moment to seize and the current pandemic presents significant opportunities to accelerate change – one of them being a genuine investment in local and national capacities.”
                  • Earthquake hits already devastated Indonesia
                    January 22, 2021 – WORLD
                    “The people of Indonesia inspire the world community as an example of extraordinary resilience,” said Dr. Vlatko Uzevski, emergency response leader for the nonprofit Project HOPE, which is also responding in Sulawesi.
                  • How Companies Can Partner With Governments To Distribute COVID Vaccines Efficiently and Effectively
                    January 21, 2021 – Forbes
                    “Companies and organizations play a critical role in addressing public health and humanitarian crises by filling in gaps to strengthen response efforts led by governments and global donors. Their role as part of cross-sector solutions is more important than ever amidst the current pandemic and as we prepare to prevent future public health crises,” according to Chris Skopec, executive vice president of Project HOPE, the international humanitarian and relief organization.
                  • Tybee resident shares America’s good face, good heart through global Project HOPE
                    January 18, 2021 – Savannah Morning News
                    I visited Beryl to hear about her recent trip as a volunteer with Project HOPE COVID crisis team at the Northern Navajo Medical Center in Shiprock, New Mexico. She is there now, again, this time joined by her granddaughter who is a pre-med student. Beryl told me about a day when the neighboring Apache tribe came and did a healing dance outside the hospital all afternoon. “It was in honor of the health care workers and the sick people. It was a blessing and really cheered up the staff, who were working so hard.”
                  • Séisme en Indonésie: les pluies torrentielles compliquent les recherches
                    January 17, 2021 – Yahoo! France / AFP
                    “La situation en Indonésie relève de l’urgence”, a affirmé l’ONG Project HOPE. “Le Covid-19 complique encore la réponse.”
                  • 22 Questions to Ask Your Doctor About the COVID-19 Vaccine
                    January 15, 2021 – U.S. News & World Report
                    “There’s still much to be learned about this vaccine,” Kenyon says. “Are we sure it’s going to prevent transmission? That isn’t yet confirmed. There’s early evidence, at least for the Moderna vaccine, that it probably does. But you can still, potentially, be vaccinated and acquire COVID-19 asymptomatically and spread it to others. We don’t know yet.” Therefore, it’s important to continue to wear masks and practice social distancing even after you are vaccinated, in order to protect others.
                  • At virus tipping point, Lebanon imposes all-day curfew
                    January 14, 2021 – AP News
                    Still, Rabih Torbay, who heads Project HOPE, an international global health and humanitarian organization, said time is of essence and urged authorities to take any step that might help curb infections. “Every day that goes by the country is sliding further into the abyss,” he said.
                  • El enorme reto al que se enfrenta Biden para enderezar la caótica campaña de vacunación
                    January 9, 2021 – Univision
                    Entre los factores que determinarán la rapidez con la que volvemos a la normalidad se encuentra el ritmo de investigación de vacunas adicionales; la producción y distribución de vacunas y, lo más importante, la velocidad y el grado en que cubrimos a las poblaciones de mayor riesgo con las vacunas, incluidas dos dosis de las vacunas actuales, señala Tom Kenyon, Chief Health Officer en Project HOPE, una organización de salud global.
                  • Share This: 7 Ways to Support Nurses in 2021
                    January 8, 2021 – Daily Nurse
                    Give to Charities that Support Covid Frontliners: Project HOPE focuses primarily on providing PPE to health care workers, delivering training on how to care for COVID-19 patients, and deploying health care workers to medical facilities in need of additional staffing.
                  • 3 tips from nonprofit professionals on how to stay connected during deployment
                    January 7, 2021 – The Last Mile
                    goTenna’s CEO Daniela Perdomo sat down with leaders in the nonprofit sector to discuss “Navigating connectivity in the digital divide.” As someone who is currently deployed to Honduras on a cyclone disaster recovery relief mission, Tom Cotter, Directory of Emergency Response and Preparedness at Project HOPE, also had his fair share of satellite phone usage.
                  • How the COVID-19 Vaccines Are Providing Hope to a Hard-Hit Navajo Nation
                    January 4, 2021 – Healthline
                    Project HOPE has been helping out hard-hit areas across the nation from the start, Harley Jones, who is the program’s U.S. COVID-19 response leader, told Healthline. But the Navajo Nation created, in some ways, a unique set of challenges. “What’s happening in Navajo Nation is extremely similar to what is happening in minority and other underserved populations,” Jones said. What’s unique comes down to culture. “Cultural competency (when coming in to help a community) is very important,” Jones said.
                  • What vaccines mean for the return of travel
                    January 4, 2021 – National Geographic
                    “Vaccine hesitancy is a critical obstacle to overcome,” says Dr. Tom Kenyon, the chief health officer of Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization, and a former director at U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). To get back to travel, the U.S. and the world need herd immunity, thought to be achieved when about 70 percent of the population has protective antibodies. Kenyon says, though, that “70 percent is an arbitrary figure, and there is no ‘off/on’ switch with herd immunity.”

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      2020

      • • • • • • • Here’s how to help those affected by the coronavirus pandemic
                    December 29, 2020 – CNBC Make It
                    For over 60 years, Project HOPE has worked to support local health-care workers. Now with the coronavirus pandemic, it’s focused on bringing protective gear for American doctors and nurses. Additionally, the organization has activated its global roster of medical volunteers to provide staff in hard-hit U.S. cities, including Chicago. The organization is also coordinating international efforts in high-risk countries like North Macedonia, Kosovo, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Colombia.
                  • 2 hurricanes in 2 weeks: Doctor gives firsthand account of devastation in Honduras
                    December 20, 2020 – NewsNation Now
                    NewsNation spoke to Dr. Vlatko Uzevski with Project HOPE. Uzevski is leading an emergency response team in Honduras. In his own words, Uzevski describes just how dire the situation is in Honduras: ““When you visit the affected areas, the first thing that that is coming to your eye, it’s the destruction and especially of the water system of the country. Also, it’s very visible landslides that you see around them, it damaged roads and bridges on the huge bridges on the rivers that are completely wiped out. So there are some communities that are completely cut off from the from the civilization.”
                  • Navajo Nation COVID vaccine roll-out begins as cases, deaths rise
                    December 17, 2020 – Al Jazeera
                    Harley Jones, the US COVID response lead for international health care NGO Project HOPE, whose team of volunteers is working at Shiprock, said one of his volunteer nurses is working 12-hour days, six days a week, in the intensive care unit at the Northern Navajo Medical Center. These healthcare professionals are working alongside others to help with COVID-19 testing and contact tracing, and in some cases, delivering food and medical supplies, Jones said.
                  • Unique holiday gift ideas that keep giving long after celebrations end
                    December 17, 2020 – Fox Business
                    Project HOPE works to alleviate the world’s shortage of health care workers by offering solutions on the front lines to combat critical health challenges. The organization is currently playing a vital role in helping to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, distributing more than 11 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE), providing training for more than 83,000 health workers and front-line personnel, and reaching more than 150 countries.
                  • Microchips and mandatory shots: Don’t fall for these coronavirus vaccine myths
                    December 16, 2020 – CNET
                    “COVID-19 is on track to become the leading infectious disease killer in the world in 2020, exceeding the annual number of deaths from HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria,” says Dr. Tom Kenyon, a former CDC director and Project HOPE’s chief health officer. “This is staggering.”
                  • How did we develop a COVID-19 vaccine so quickly?
                    December 15, 2020 – Medical News Today
                    According to Dr. Kenyon, misinformation surrounding mRNA vaccines stems from a concern that the vaccine infects people with the virus. “Nobody is getting infected with a COVID vaccine. It is only the surface protein that would be replicated because we have given you the messenger RNA. It is not the entire virus,” he explained.
                  • Coronavirus Vaccine Doesn’t Alter Winter Holiday Safety Guidance
                    December 15, 2020 – AARP
                    “The virus is everywhere. This is a very precarious time,” says Tom Kenyon, an epidemiologist, a former director of the CDC Center for Global Health and now the chief health officer for Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization. “We know that at present, most transmission is actually happening from these small gatherings.”
                  • Even Disaster Veterans Are Stunned By What’s Happening In Honduras
                    December 14, 2020 – NPR
                    “The water system of the Santa Barbara department is 100% collapsed,” says Vlatko Uzevski, who arrived in Honduras last week from Macedonia to lead an emergency response team for Project HOPE. Helping set up temporary water distribution points is one of the things Project HOPE is working on in the area.
                  • How They Handled—Or Created—A Crisis In 2020: Here Are The New Members Of My Crisis Management Hall Of Fame
                    December 11, 2020 – Forbes
                    “For almost every emergency, there will be a corresponding health crisis,” according to Rabih Torbay, Project HOPE’s President and CEO. “The first minutes, hours and days of a response are critical to saving lives. Project HOPE works to support and provide resources for local health care workers worldwide–who are always the first responders–to implement solutions that are best for their specific communities and situations.”
                  • Climate Change Is Our Reality; Now Is The Time To Solve It
                    December 8, 2020 – Health Affairs
                    “The good news is that our greatest challenges are prime opportunities to drive and realize positive change. In a time in which much is broken, the chance to build back better is right before us. This is the time to make our most meaningful progress yet toward sustainable development goals. The hope for a better world lies in our resilience…” writes Rabih Torbay, President and CEO of Project HOPE.
                  • 8 coronavirus vaccine myths, debunked
                    December 7, 2020 – CNET
                    “It will take time, but to bring this pandemic to an end will require us all to unite and be vaccinated, as well as continue to follow recommendations from the scientists to wear a mask, keep a safe distance from others and to wash our hands,” says Dr. Tom Kenyon, a former CDC director and Project HOPE’s chief health officer.
                  • Health issues emerge as top concern among Nagorno-Karabakh refugees in Armenia
                    December 3, 2020 – Panorama Armenia
                    The armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh has forced several thousand people suffering from health issues out of their homes. Many displaced persons, who have taken refuge at transitional settlements across Armenia, are suffering from life-threatening health conditions and face inadequate access to health care services, according to an assessment conducted by Project HOPE.
                  • Navajo Nation again faces ‘major health care crisis,’ officials say
                    December 3, 2020 – The Washington Post
                    Harley Jones — who does emergency management with Project HOPE, which supplies extra frontline workers so others can take time off — said the Navajo Nation is now struggling to get enough healthcare providers and that “it’s not in the forefront of everyone’s mind that they need support.” He said the Navajos in particular are seeing “an extreme need for additional nurses” at their healthcare facilities.
                  • The hunt for Covid’s origins
                    December 3, 2020 – POLITICO
                    What we know about the WHO inquiry so far: The investigatory team includes 10 experts and will be split into two phases. “It’s really detective work. It requires tracking down the infected person and doing interviews to find out who or what that person was exposed to. And like in any detective work, the trail goes colder the longer it takes,” said Tom Kenyon, who’s now the chief health officer at Project HOPE.
                  • A guide to helping and getting help during the coronavirus crisis
                    December 2, 2020 – CNN
                    CNN’s Impact Your World has compiled a list of donation opportunities and tips to help those  affected by the COVID-19 crisis, such as Project HOPE. This humanitarian NGO has mobilized teams in high-risk countries, to help support doctors and nurses on the front lines of the fight to save lives.
                  • America will be the first country to roll out a covid-19 vaccine
                    November 28, 2020 – The Economist
                    “Unlike many other countries, America has a more ‘passive’ approach to vaccination and is not used to doing big immunization campaigns,” says Tom Kenyon from Project HOPE, a health non-profit, who used to lead the CDC’s Global Health Program. “This works for childhood vaccination. But COVID-19 is different. Lots of mini vaccination drives to cover specific groups, such as frontline workers, will be crucial,” says Dr. Kenyon.
                  • Governments around the world weigh thorny question: Who gets the vaccine first?
                    November 27, 2020 – POLITICO
                    Demand for the coronavirus vaccine will outstrip supply, presenting a massive dilemma for governments, which must decide who gets the vaccine first or early, and who must wait. “You want to target the highest risk, because this will get you the biggest benefit,” said Tom Kenyon, a former director of CDC’s Center for Global Health, now chief health officer at the non-profit Project HOPE, who cited the example of truck drivers in Africa being identified as key spreaders of the virus.
                  • How Project HOPE Prepares For And Responds To Crisis Situations Around The World
                    November 23, 2020 – The Crisis Ahead Podcast
                    Rabih Torbay, President and CEO of Project HOPE, speaks with Forbes columnist Edward Segal to discuss how the international organization prepares for and responds to crisis situations around the world, and what others can learn their work. “Training health workers is critical. Because when a crisis happens it’s not us who responds to it, it’s the local health workers.”
                  • US provides $17M in humanitarian aid as Hurricane Iota death toll rises
                    November 22, 2020 – Fox News
                    Iota hammered parts of Central America and Columbia that were recently hit by Hurricane Eta. Footage tweeted by Hajer Naili, Media Relations Manager of the aid organization Project HOPE shows large numbers of people sheltering under a highway overpass in Colonia Sitraterco, Honduras.
                  • Pandemic Forces Family Thanksgiving Traditions to Online Platforms
                    November 20, 2020 – The Baltimore Times
                    As the holiday season approaches, the threat and spread of COVID-19 has increased at alarming rates. “It’s more important than ever to double down on personal safety and public health precautions,” said Dr. Tom Kenyon, Project HOPE’s Chief Health Officer. “As for Thanksgiving and gatherings, we have to keep reminding ourselves: Is this group dinner or holiday party worth risking someone’s life?”
                  • Iota devastates Nicaragua and Honduras; death toll rises
                    November 18, 2020 – Fox News
                    Hurricanes Eta and Iota are causing increased COVID-19 infections across the displaced populations. Fox News highlights how Project HOPE is responding and addressing additional long-term impacts such as other infectious diseases increasing. “This is a crisis of a level that we haven’t seen before,” said Andrea Dunne-Sosa, Project HOPE’s Regional Director for the Americas.
                  • Help Central America hurricane victims
                    November 17, 2020 – CNN
                    Hurricane Iota hit Central America as a Category 4 storm only two weeks after Hurricane Eta devastated countries such as Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. CNN spotlights non-profit emergency relief efforts for communities affected by the hurricanes, including Project HOPE.
                  • Covid vaccine will test Biden’s global leadership
                    November 12, 2020 – POLITICO
                    The deep freeze required for Pfizer’s new coronavirus vaccine presents global obstacles. Dr. Tom Kenyon said that the global community also has to be educated and ready to receive the vaccine, and there must be enough health care workers to administer it – both of which can pose potential additional roadblocks.
                  • Utah declares state of emergency and orders residents to mask up amid Covid-19 case surge
                    November 9, 2020 – NBC News
                    As Pfizer raised hope for a new coronavirus vaccine, NBC News turned to Dr. Tom Kenyon to discuss who should receive the vaccine first – identifying doctors, nurses and frontline workers. That’s just the beginning as Dr. Kenyon said, “It will take time, but to bring this pandemic to an end will require us all to unite and be vaccinated.”
                  • Elliott Erwitt: ‘Photography is pretty simple. You just react to what you see’
                    November 9, 2020 – The Guardian
                    Elliott Erwitt has photographed some of the most notable moments of modern history. Now, he teamed up with the Project HOPE and philanthropy firm Phil Ropy for a campaign that turns one of Erwitt’s photographs into a digital collectible card to raise awareness about providing personal protective equipment to healthcare workers around the world.
                  • Covid set to cause 400,000 surge in TB deaths as medics diverted
                    November 8, 2020 – The Guardian
                    Millions of missed diagnoses will add to global pandemic toll, warns WHO study. Dr. Tom Kenyon discusses the deaths that will be caused indirectly by COVID-19: “It was obviously crucial that we tackle the pandemic but we cannot forget that we have other killers in our midst. We are going to have to be innovative in addressing them.”
                  • For second straight day, U.S. Covid cases reach new high
                    October 23, 2020 – NBC News
                    The U.S. is setting daily records for coronavirus cases, and pandemic fatigue is setting in. Dr. Tom Kenyon advises that it’s not too late for us to change the course of the pandemic by following simple safety precautions.
                  • 3 Ways to Ensure Your Crisis Management and Communication Plans Will Work
                    October 12, 2020 – Forbes
                    What effect has the coronavirus crisis had in convincing companies to prepare for the next crisis — or how to survive this ongoing national public health emergency? Rabih Torbay, President and CEO of Project HOPE, shared how to create and implement an effective crisis plan.
                  • Health Care Workers in Remote Regions Get Access to Free Online Coronavirus Training
                    September 23, 2020 – ABC7’s The Denver Channel
                    Project HOPE was already on the ground in Wuhan, China when the initial COVID-19 outbreak occurred. As the virus started spreading, HOPE realized they not only needed more people to be trained, but they needed to reach more people around the world.
                  • Project HOPE and how you can support relief efforts in Lebanon
                    August 14, 2020 – WJLA’s Good Morning Washington
                    It’s been 10 days since two explosions devastated the capital of Lebanon. Rabih Torbay, President and CEO of Project HOPE, just returned from Beirut on an emergency response mission. He shared how you can help relief efforts.
                  • Everything You Need to Protect Yourself (and Others) From COVID-19 on Campus
                    August 12, 2020 – New York Magazine
                    We spoke with doctors, public-health experts, and education professionals to find out exactly what college kids will need to protect themselves — and others — on campus. Project HOPE’s Tom Cotter weighs in.
                  • In Beirut, humanitarian responders confront layers of disaster
                    August 10, 2020 – Devex
                    The humanitarian response to the deadly explosion in Beirut last week is complicated by preexisting economic instability and rising levels of food insecurity in Lebanon. Project HOPE is responding a bit differently, as “large teams on a moment’s notice is not really practical anymore.”
                  • Europe Sees Rise in COVID-19 After Reopening
                    August 6, 2020 – Healthline
                    “Many countries seeing an uptick in cases likely reopened much too soon, and many individuals relaxed their efforts to follow public health recommendations,” Chris Skopec said. “But this is not unique to Europe, as evidenced by case numbers in the U.S., Australia, Japan, and other countries.”
                  • Houston, Miami, other cities face mounting health care worker shortages as infections climb
                    July 25, 2020 – The Washington Post
                    At Harris Health System in Houston, 162 staff members — including more than 50 nurses — are quarantined, either because they tested positive or are awaiting results. Harris Health turned to the state and the international nonprofit Project HOPE for resources.
                  • 5 Ways You Can Support Healthcare Workers on the Front Lines of COVID-19
                    July 19, 2020 – Popsugar
                    Healthcare workers are always in need of personal protective equipment. Several organizations accept monetary donations that help get frontline healthcare professionals necessary equipment, including Project HOPE.
                  • Hundreds of nurses pour into Texas to help fight second COVID surge
                    July 10, 2020 – The Houston Chronicle
                    Harris Health System is working with a temp agency but has also turned to nonprofit Project HOPE, which provides medical professionals from across the country to places facing medical crises.
                  • Avril Lavigne And Sarah McLachlan Both Perform During Virtual Canada Day Celebrations
                    July 1, 2020 – Entertainment Tonight Canada
                    The Canadian songstress Avril Lavigne performed her new hit “We Are Warriors” which was released to support Project HOPE and its COVID-19 relief efforts. Lavigne first released the song at the end of April and collaborated with nurses, doctors and more for the official music video.
                  • How to Watch the ‘Lord of the Rings’ Reunion
                    May 30, 2020 – Lifehacker
                    In each episode of ‘Reunited Apart’, Josh Gad raises money for a COVID-19-related charity. Previous organizations have included Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization.
                  • How I’m Living How: Josh Gad, Actor, Writer and Producer
                    May 19, 2020 – The Hollywood Reporter
                    The star, who is in preproduction on multiple projects and recording voice work from home, talks virtual pitch meetings, overhauling his carefully planned shooting schedule and launching web series ‘Reunited Apart.’
                  • Thomas Wilson Reprises ‘Back to the Future’ Villain Biff Tannen
                    May 14, 2020 – The Hollywood Reporter
                    The character called in to a supplemental episode of Josh Gad’s ‘Reunited Apart’ for a surprise appearance.
                  • Nurses Day: How to honor the health care workers
                    May 12, 2020 – CNN
                    International Nurses Day is celebrated May 12, marking the birthday of Florence Nightingale. Nurses are at the forefront of fighting the coronavirus pandemic. So how can you help?
                  • The Back To The Future Reunion Is Wildly Entertaining And For A Great Cause
                    May 11, 2020 – GameSpot
                    Josh Gad’s new series is a fundraiser for Project HOPE, which delivers masks and protective equipment to health workers on the front line of the pandemic.
                  • Back to the Future cast reunite from coronavirus quarantine to relive classic moments
                    May 11, 2020 – USA Today
                    The stars of the hit ’80s film series reunited virtually on Monday — nearly 35 years since the first film hit theaters — to reminisce while raising money for Project HOPE’s coronavirus relief efforts.
                  • Back to the Future Cast Reunites for Josh Gad’s Retro Series Fundraiser
                    May 11, 2020 – The Hollywood Reporter
                    The cast of Back to the Future reunited for an online video, a second in a series of fundraising projects spearheaded by Josh Gad, dubbed Reunited Apart.
                  • Back To The Future cast members getting back together for Josh Gad’s ‘Reunited Apart’ YouTube series
                    May 6, 2020 – NY Daily News
                    Josh Gad, best-known as the voice of Olaf the snowman in Frozen, has been using the Reunited Apart episodes as an effort to raise money for a COVID-19 charity. The Back To The Future special will support Project HOPE.
                  • Avril Lavigne honoring frontline workers with new music video ‘We Are Warriors’
                    May 1, 2020 – CNN
                    Avril Lavigne re-recorded her single “Warrior” off her Head Above Water album, and net proceeds from the song and new music video go to Project HOPE, which is providing support to health care workers around the world.
                  • Here’s How Celebs Are Helping Out During the Coronavirus Pandemic
                    May 1, 2020 – Billboard
                    Ricky Martin has launched a new campaign to help health care workers save lives across the globe through the nonprofit organization Project HOPE.
                  • Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher send planeload of PPE to UK frontline workers
                    April 29, 2020 – Page Six
                    Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher quietly partnered with Salesforce mogul Marc Benioff to donate a planeload of PPE supplies to front-line medical workers in the UK, and Cohen is also working with Project HOPE in the US..
                  • Did Trump ship 17 tons of ‘American’ masks and medical supplies to China?
                    April 22, 2020 – Washington Post
                    These were actually donations by private charities and public companies for Project HOPE, an international health-care organization that has been operating in Wuhan for a quarter-century and helped establish a nursing school there.
                  • Avril Lavigne Announces New Re-Recorded Single ‘We Are Warriors’ To Honour ‘Heroic’ Frontline Workers
                    April 22, 2020 – msn.com
                    Avril Lavigne reveals she’ll be donating profits from the single to Project Hope, “an incredible organization that is on the front lines keeping doctors and medical staff safe all over the world.”⁣
                  • Ricky Martin launches campaign to keep health workers safe amid coronavirus
                    March 23, 2020 – Billboard
                    Puerto Rican superstar Ricky Martin launched a campaign to help health care workers save lives across the globe, in partnership with Project HOPE.
                  • Coronavirus: Africa has few cases so far but ‘it’s just a matter of time’ before major outbreak
                    March 13, 2020 – South China Morning Post and POLITICO
                    Project HOPE chief health officer and former director of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Center for Global Health Thomas Kenyon discussed the threat Africa faces from coronavirus.
                  • Coronavirus coverage elbows aside disease-awareness pushes
                    March 9, 2020 – MM&M
                    With many health awareness efforts in March, COVID-19 still dominated headlines. Cinira Baldi, VP and chief communications officer at Project HOPE, talked with MM&M about what that means for non-profit messaging strategies.
                  • So you’ve been asked to self-quarantine. Here’s what you should know.
                    March 9, 2020 – Washington Post
                    Project HOPE director of emergency response and preparedness Tom Cotter advises on how to prepare for a quarantine.
                  • China coronavirus public health response was ‘unprecedented’ in scale: Expert
                    March 4, 2020 – Fox Business
                    Project HOPE executive vice president Chris Skopec discusses Project HOPE’s efforts to fight coronavirus on the ground in China.
                  • Mike Pompeo and Alex Azar: Our coronavirus response is protecting Americans
                    February 11, 2020 – USA Today
                    While the State Department managed the logistics, the donations themselves were provided by American organizations and coordinated by a nongovernmental organization called Project HOPE
                  • Coronavirus: UPS airlifts masks and protective equipment
                    January 31, 2020 – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
                    UPS is airlifting supplies of respirator masks and protective gear to Project HOPE’s team in China for distribution to healthcare workers amid the coronavirus outbreak.

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