cholera: Another disaster in Haiti
not only the earthquake, but now the cholera strikes on an island and wound already affected by a disaster in early 2010 that has claimed more than 250 thousand deaths. The authorities in Port-au-Prince declared a state of health emergency facing the spread of cholera. According to the budget of local authorities, the epidemic has resulted in a few days killed at least 200 people and about two thousand cases of infection, but it is a budget set to rise.
The epidemic of cholera has been confirmed by a source from the Ministry of Health, based on the early results of tests carried out after the deaths. The government convened an urgent meeting with health authorities.
''We found more than 200 deaths and 1,498 cases of people suffering from dysentery. According to laboratory analysis, it is cholera, "said the president of the doctors in Haiti, in a statement to Agence France Presse.
Most of the victims were recorded along the Artibonite river which runs through the center and north of the country. " This is an epidemic due to water used in the homes of those regions ," said Ariel Henry, director of the Ministry of Health of Haiti. " Some people have died in their homes in the Artibonite region and central areas of Haiti and several hundreds are hospitalized and placed under control ," they added other medical sources.
While the alarm is spreading in the neighboring Dominican Republic, which launched a program of prevention, President of Haiti, Rene Preval, has convened a new emergency meeting to decide how to tackle the spread of the disease and what recommendations to give to the population. The fear of the authorities in Port-au-Prince is that the epidemic is spreading rapidly precisely because of the living conditions of hundreds of thousands of earthquake victims sheltering in relief camps. the field are already working to international organizations that have provided aid after the earthquake of January. the Italian Red Cross is working to distribute 30 thousand liters of drinking water in the department of Artibonite. In the same region have also traveled teams Doctors Without Borders, in collaboration with local health authorities, are treating patients and providing necessary measures for prevention of infection.
A UN expert, Walter Kaelin, who alleged in a report the profound humanitarian crisis that the country is going through. "according to estimates, one million three hundred thousand people, including those who have lost their homes during the earthquake and who has escaped extreme poverty exacerbated by the earthquake are still living in temporary camps in Port-au-Prince and its ," said Kaelin. " The inhabitants of refugee camps have needs that are handled internally by the field, such as the need to have a shelter but also other urgent needs such as access health care, water, sanitation and education, involving the entire community, thus ensuring the uniform treatment among people living in tents and who is not .
