Posts
That is the horrible face of Haiti today, after cholera outbreak resurgence due to the start of the rainy season and flood that hit the capital Port-au-Prince. Parts of the southern peninsula are also affected, seeing increase of cases in Grand Anse, Nippes, Sud, Sud-Est, Artibonite, and Nord. In April and May, Mirabalais treatment center saw fivefold increase of cases. Between May 2 and June 12 alone, there were 18,182 newly reported cases. Cholera first broke on October 2010, and since then, there’s been 344,623 reported cases and 5,397 related deaths. Sadly, the outbreak is still expected to get worse as the rainy season advances.
Haiti’s condition, after the January 2010 earthquake, made the situation harder to handle. The poor access to clean water and proper sanitation remain to be the biggest challenge during a cholera outbreak. Even aid workers are worried that the treatment supplies would no longer be enough when the situation gets worse. Water-trucking is now down to 20% of what it was after the quake. And that number is about to get lower as other NGOs prepare to close their water-trucking and sewage removal activities in the next few months due to lack of fund.
To make things worse, treatment facilities that are mostly financed by NGOs, will have to face scaling down operations in rural areas as well. They will have to transfer the responsibility to the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), which unluckily have insufficient fund as well. And in those rural areas, transportation of patients with severe conditions is also a problem, with only 11 vehicles getting the job done.
WHO/PAHO that helps in the Haiti cholera epidemic is asking for international aid. It also appeals to its partners to consider keeping professional personal in medical uniforms as well as facilities in place.
