Patients affected by cholera receive treatment at an MSF cholera treatment center in Port-au-Prince.
Cholera cases are on the rise in Haiti
following the onset of the rainy season, and the country is not
adequately prepared to combat the deadly disease, the international
medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF) said today.
While Haiti’s Ministry of Health and Populations claims to be in
control of the situation, health facilities in many regions of the
country remain incapable of responding to the seasonal fluctuations of
the cholera
epidemic. The surveillance system, which is supposed to monitor the
situation and raise the alarm, is still dysfunctional, MSF said. The
number of people treated by MSF alone in the capital, Port-au-Prince,
has quadrupled in less than a month, reaching 1,600 cases in April. The
organization has increased treatment capacity in the city and in the
town of Léogâne, and is preparing to open additional treatment sites in
the country. Nearly 200,000 cholera cases were reported during the rainy
season last year, between May and October.
“Too little has been done in terms of prevention to think that cholera
would not surge again in 2012,” said Gaëtan Drossart, MSF head of
mission in Haiti. “It is concerning that the health authorities are not
better prepared and that they cling to reassuring messages that bear no
resemblance to reality. There are many meetings going on between the
government, the United Nations and their humanitarian partners, but
there are few concrete solutions,” he said.
An MSF study in the Artibonite region, where approximately 20 percent
of cholera cases have been reported, has revealed a clear reduction of
cholera prevention measures since 2011. More than half of the
organizations working in the region last year are now gone.
Additionally, health centers are short of drugs and some staff have not
been paid since January.
“Rain is just one of the risk factors for contamination. But as soon as
the rains end, cholera subsides, and funding stops until the next rainy
season, instead of money being channeled towards cholera prevention
activities. As a consequence, people are still highly vulnerable when
cholera comes back,” said Maya Allan, MSF epidemiologist.
The majority of Haitians do not have access to latrines, and obtaining
clean water is a daily challenge. Of the half-million survivors of the
January, 2010 earthquake who continue to live in camps, less than one
third are provided with clean drinking water and only one percent
recently received soap, according to a April 2012 investigation by
Haiti’s National Directorate of Water Supply and Sanitation.
“Hygiene advice is of little use if people are unable to put it into
practice,” said Drossart. ”People urgently need the means to protect
themselves against cholera.”
While the cholera vaccination being used in some parts of Haiti can
help control the disease, it is not a foolproof solution. The vaccine
provides immunity for approximately three years and is estimated to be
only 70 percent effective. Only major improvements of Haiti’s water and
sanitation systems will provide durable solutions to the epidemic, but
that will take time.
“The priority today is to save lives,” said Drossart. “All health
actors in Haiti need to start working towards this goal immediately.”
Since cholera emerged in Haiti in October 2010, 535,000 people have
been infected and more than 7,000 people have died, according to the
Ministry of Health and Populations. To date, MSF has treated more than
170,000 people, or 33 percent of total cases, across the country.
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