DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Almost half of Haiti's injured may be children: study

A Haitian girl holds a baby as they wait January 27, 2010 to get into a medical clinic set up by a group of Cuban doctors in Croix des Bouquets, Haiti. Photo courtesy AFP

Eighty-three UN staffers killed in Haiti quake: Ban Ki-moon
At least 83 UN staffers have died in Haiti's devastating earthquake and 32 are still unaccounted for 15 days after the disaster, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday. "The full death toll is still unknown. As for the United Nations: we have confirmed the deaths of 83... as of this morning, with 32 still unaccounted for," he told a press conference, in what marks the deadliest disaster in the world body's history. The January 12 temblor, which leveled the main headquarters of the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), notably claimed the lives of UN special envoy Hedi Annabi and his Brazilian deputy Luiz Carlos da Costa. Wednesday, Haitian President Rene Preval said "nearly 170,000" bodies had already been counted, substantially higher than previous toll estimates of 150,000. International rescuers have pulled at least 134 people alive from the ruins since the disaster, the UN said. The 7.0-magnitude quake also left a million homeless in the poorest country in the Americas.
by Staff Writers
 Washington (AFP) Jan 27, 2010
 US researchers said Wednesday they feared almost half of all those injured by the devastating Haiti quake may be children, urging relief agencies to plan accordingly.

A statistical study by a specialist group at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California showed that those hurt in the January 12 quake will likely "include an extraordinarily high number of children, more than 110,000, nearly half of the estimated total."

The study was conducted by Jeffrey Upperman and Robert Neches PhD, who have developed a software tool to help medical service providers plan their responses in the case of disasters and accidents involving children.

Using existing data, the Pediatric Emergency Decision Support System (PEDSS) uses statistical methods to estimate how many of the victims of a disaster may be children and what care they might need.

"Such needs in Haiti are particularly intense, because fully 35 percent of the population is under 15, meaning the estimated total number of injuries (250,000) contains far more children than it would in other areas," the researchers said in a statement.

They stressed that injured children had different medical needs, such as thinner hypodermic needles, the correct doses of children's drugs, and pediatric specialists.

The software works with seven age groups, and applying its program to the population of Haiti it predicted that half of the injured, about 44 percent or 111,000, could be under the age of 18.

It estimated that about 1,000 children aged between six to eight had suffered crush injuries, and calculated how many doses of specific drugs to treat such injuries would be needed.



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