Cholera Spreads to Haiti’s Capital
HAVANA TIMES, Nov. 10 — Medical personnel in Haiti, which includes several hundred Cuban doctors, are now facing a cholera outbreak in several regions including the capital Port-au-Prince with 73 confirmed cases. The following is a report from the Haitilibre.com website.
PORT-AU-PRINCE HAS 73 CHOLERA CASES, 1 DEAD
Since October 21, cholera in Haiti has had at least 583 victims reported officially.
A total of 9.123 people infected with Vibrio cholerae type O1 are hospitalized. The cholera epidemic is now considered as “a national security issue,” said on Tuesday Gabriel Thimothé, the Director General of Haitian Ministry of Health.
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Health, the five regions, the Artibonite, Center, North, Northwest and West of Haiti and the capital are now affected by cholera.
If the epidemic began in Artibonite, it has now reached the capital, Port-au-Prince. International organizations expect that the epidemic is spreading quickly. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a branch of the WHO, for its part indicated that the Ministry of Health had reported 73 confirmed cases of cholera in Port-au-Prince, Carrefour, Cité Soleil, Delmas, Kenskoff, Petion Ville and Tabarre. One death from cholera is already confirmed, at Ste-Catherine hospital, held by MSF have confirmed the Haitian authorities.
Stefano Zannini the chief of mission at Mission Sans Frontières (MSF) in Haiti said “There are suspected cases across the country. According to our teams, dead bodies are abandoned in the streets in some villages,” he said while MSF has treated over 200 cases of severe diarrhea, a symptom of cholera, these last three days in Port-au-Prince in Hospitals run by MSF.
For Dr. Jon K. Andrus of PAHO, the health conditions in Port-au-Prince are very bad and represent the optimum conditions for rapid spread of cholera. In addition, poor hygiene in overcrowded refugee camps, suggest a worsening of the epidemic.
What happened to public health? An outbreak of this type is something one couldn’t accept in 1910, let alone 2010. Where is Obama? Where is Bill Clinton, in charge of it all? Where is OCHA, who handed it over to him? Where is WHO? Where is UNICEF? Where are the resources (basic infrastructure such as water supply and sewage removal) for the people of Haiti, instead of for the tourists, who are too scared to even come visit because of cholera? Yet another lesson from the black prince…