UNICEF Emergency Response

Dear Friend,

In January and February 2021, a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, India appeared to be recovering from the first wave of cases in 2020. However, since March there has been a significant resurgence in the number of cases. By April, the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic had hit India hard, straining the country’s healthcare systems to a breaking point. In the peak of this second wave, four new cases were recorded every second and more than two deaths every minute.In addition, the country’s COVID-19 response is further challenged by climate emergencies. About 24 million children are impacted by floods, drought, cyclones, and other hazards that exacerbate underlying vulnerabilities on a recurrent basis in India.

With your generous support, UNICEF is leading preparedness and response efforts to address the direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19, natural disasters, and civil strife, targeting the most vulnerable, including people in slums and migrant families. Your generosity has ensured UNICEF is positioned to protect children and their families from exposure to COVID-19, to minimize the impacts of public health measures, address the socioeconomic consequences, and maintain access and provision of basic social services in the following ways:

• Reduce COVID-19 transmission and mortality by strengthening risk communication and community engagement interventions to reach communities with lifesaving information and community-led approaches that promote healthy and safe lifestyles, tackle misinformation around COVID-19 and increase adoption of vaccines, treatment and tests.
• Improve infection prevention and control through the provision of safe water, sanitation and hygiene services and supplies for people in highly vulnerable rural and urban communities, in health facilities, schools, pre-schools, quarantine centers, immunization centers.
• Ensure continuity and sustained access to basic health services for children and their families through support for facilities such as health clinics and schools and by building upon the capacity of frontline workers.
• Respond to the impact and consequences of natural disasters and civil strife through bolstering resilience to predictable hazards by enhancing child-centered disaster risk management systems and risk-informed programming.

Thank you for continuing to stand along UNICEF to support communities impacted by humanitarian disasters around the world to make this work possible. With your help, UNICEF has been able to reach crisis-affected and vulnerable children and adolescents in India with lifesaving assistance and services. By contributing to this work, you are providing critical support to UNICEF, increasing its ability to strengthen essential systems during the pandemic and ensure access to lifesaving services for vulnerable populations.

In Partnership,

Whitney

Links:

• As India Faces Brutal COVID-19 Crisis, UNICEF Is There to Help