A leading British medical journal says many international aid groups in Haiti are more concerned with self-promotion than helping earthquake survivors.

About 3 million Haitians were left injured or homeless by the January 12 earthquake.

In a blistering attack on the aid effort in Haiti, the Lancet says many agencies on the ground are too obsessed with media coverage and marketing campaigns.

The editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, says instead of working for one common humanitarian goal, many organisations in Haiti are competing against one another.

He said there was plenty of evidence of that, with some NGOs using slogans like "spearheading the relief effort" or "leading a response".

Dr Horton said many charities were repeating the mistakes made during the Asian tsunami of December, 2004.

"International organisations, national governments and non-governmental organisations are rightly mobilising, but also jostling for position, each claiming that they are doing the best for earthquake survivors," The Lancet said in an editorial.

"Some agencies even claim that they are 'spearheading' the relief effort. In fact, as we only too clearly see, the situation in Haiti is chaotic, devastating, and anything but coordinated."

The Lancet did not name names and gave credit to "exceptional work in difficult circumstances" by aid workers.

But the British journal said "the aid sector [is] undoubtedly an industry in its own right" and, unpalatable as it might seem, scrutiny of motives and performance was justified.

"Large aid agencies and humanitarian organisations are often highly competitive with each other," The Lancet said.

"Polluted by the internal power politics and unsavoury characteristics seen in many big corporations, large aid agencies can be obsessed with raising money through their own appeal efforts.

"Media coverage as an end in itself is too often an aim of their activities. Marketing and branding have too high a profile.

"Perhaps worse of all, relief efforts in the field are sometimes competitive, with little collaboration between agencies, including smaller, grassroots charities that may have better networks in affected countries and so are well placed to immediately implement disaster relief."

Haiti earlier launched a huge operation to move hundreds of thousands of homeless outside the ruined capital of Port-au-Prince, as hopes of finding more survivors faded nine days after the devastating quake.

Medics treated the countless injured in makeshift hospitals as gangrene began to set in, and fresh looting broke out in devastated Port-au-Prince even as some signs of normal life returned.

US forces are also repairing the main port, hoping to reopen it today.

The 7.0-magnitude quake has killed at least 75,000 and left 1 million homeless.

- AFP/BBC