UNICEF estimates 70,000 children across Vanuatu are without a secure home or have been otherwise affected by Cyclone Pam.
The humanitarian body also says its first consignment of aid had been dispatched from Fiji and this flight should arrive in Port Vila late on Monday or early Tuesday.
"This includes basic health kits and a few other urgently required medicines," UNICEF's Pacific Deputy Representative Isabelle Austin told AAP.
"The basic health kits are very important because the national hospital in Port Vila has been significantly damaged, and patients have had to be moved."
Ms Austin said also authorities were assessing a vaccines cold-store in the capital, to see what remained viable, as there were concerns of a measles outbreak given a rise in cases in recent months.
Around 2000 people are living in evacuation centres in Port Vila, where around 90 per cent of buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
Schools were being utilised as shelters in communities across the archipelago, Ms Austin said, and this was a further disruptive factor for children and families.
The initial focus of the humanitarian response was health and shelter, she said, and the next phase would have to address longer-term food needs.
"Anything above ground, in terms of crops, has been destroyed or compromised so this is a major consequence of the people of Vanuatu who rely on small-scale family agriculture for their subsistence," Ms Austin said.
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