Federal agencies continue to pour staffers and equipment into Haiti, where the focus is now shifting from search-and-rescue missions to medical care.

The U.S. government has more than 500 civilian personnel, and close to 1,000 soldiers, working on the ground in Haiti, with more on the way, according to State Department and Pentagon officials. The total includes staffers from State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Health and Human Services Department and other agencies. Much of the early work has focused on search-and-rescue missions to pull injured people from the rubble.

"The priority is still search-and-rescue," said Tim Callaghan, a senior adviser from USAID, speaking from the Haitian capital on Jan. 18. "There have been 39 live extractions by search-and-rescue teams. … We're searching at multiple sites throughout Port-au-Prince, and that will continue for the time being through today and tomorrow. But obviously we're getting closer to where you would go from rescue to recovery."

Federal officials say they're increasingly turning their attention to Haiti's shattered public health infrastructure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention planned to land a team in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday to assess the damage. Employees from the U.S. Public Health Service, an HHS agency, are already on the ground treating patients; one team in the capital treated roughly 300 children in a Haitian orphanage on Monday.

A spokesman for the Public Health Service said staffers are also working with Haitian authorities and the Pentagon to identify and bury the thousands of people killed in the earthquake.

The United Nations is in charge of security operations in Port-au-Prince and throughout the country; U.S. soldiers are providing security at the airport, which has become the nerve center for aid operations. Navy Rear Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of intelligence for the Joint Staff, told reporters the security situation in the country is "stable," despite a few reports of violence or large crowds.

"Mostly, it is people rushing to make sure they get access to water, food and other materials," Rogers told reporters. "The Haitian national police and the United Nations continue to see a stable environment that's allowing us to execute our mission."

Officials rejected criticism that the U.S. has wrongly turned away aid flights destined for Haiti. The Federal Aviation Administration has taken over Haiti's air traffic control system; several nongovernmental organizations and foreign countries, including Brazil and France, lodged complaints after their flights were diverted. A plane from Medecins Sans Frontieres — Doctors Without Borders — carrying a mobile hospital, for example, was diverted to the Dominican Republic; the hospital had to be trucked to Haiti, a process that took nearly 24 hours.

"There are hundreds of flights a day, and there is one ramp for all the aircraft," said Andrew Stevermer, commander of HHS's incident response team. "There are more planes that want to land here than we can accommodate in any given hour."

Stevermer said only three flights were turned away yesterday.

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