 The UN describes previous food aid efforts as "quick and dirty" |
The UN is to begin a major programme of food distribution in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, almost three weeks after the deadly earthquake.
Sixteen sites have been set up across the city with the aim of reaching two million people over two weeks.
The move came as doctors voiced concern that the US had halted the evacuation of the critically injured to the US.
And at least nine Americans were held on suspicion of trying to take children out of the country unauthorised.
A Haiti government spokesman, Yves Christallin, said the Americans were caught with more than 30 children on the border with the Dominican Republic, where they said they had an orphanage.
Women only
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said it had established fixed sites for food distribution, to begin on Sunday.
Only women will be allowed to collect earthquake relief supplies, because - the WFP says - this has proved that is the best way to get food to the people who need it.
Men will be encouraged to wait outside the distribution centres to accompany women after they have been given rations, because lone women would be more vulnerable to attack.
The WFP would work with the local authorities to ensure that men in need of assistance were not excluded, it said.
On Saturday, the UN body started to hand out food coupons for the distribution sites.
Each family will be entitled to collect 25kg (55lb) of rice rations, designed to last two weeks.
"Up until now the nature of this emergency has forced us to work in a 'quick and dirty' way simply to get food out," said Executive Director Josette Sheeran.
"This new system will allow us to provide food assistance to more people, more quickly through a robust network of fixed distribution sites."
The WFP says it has reached 600,000 people with over 16 million meals since the earthquake, amid huge logistical problems caused by damage to local infrastructure.
'Kids will die'
A senior US medic told the BBC that scores of people injured in the earthquake could die if the US did not resume emergency evacuations soon.
Dr Barth Green, Dr Cathy Burneit and Dr David Pitcher describe difficulties in Haiti
"The consequences - in the kids with crushed chests and on ventilators and respirators, and some of the adults - are they will die," Barth Green, a senior American doctor at a field hospital in Port-au-Prince airport, told the BBC.
Among the patients was a five-year-old girl suffering from tetanus in a small leg wound.
She would die within a day unless evacuated, Dr David Pitcher, a medic at the institute's temporary field hospital at Haiti's international airport, told the Associated Press.
The US military stopped the flights to Florida on Wednesday.
A White House spokesman told the BBC the move was due to "logistical issues", not because of a row over medical costs as had been reported earlier.
"There has been no policy decision made to suspend medical evacuation flights. This is an unprecedented relief effort with enormous logistical hurdles, and we are working through those in an effort to resume medical evacuation flights," the White House spokesman said.
Hundreds of patients with spinal injuries, burns and other wounds have been evacuated to the US since the 12 January quake that killed up to 200,000 people.
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