At least 140 people have died from the water-borne disease in central Haiti, as aid agencies fear it could spread rapidly in the unsanitary conditions in camps for displaced quake victims.
Doctors and aid workers scrambled Friday to rein in a cholera outbreak in central Haiti that has killed 140 people, while warning that the crisis probably would get worse in a country where tent camps are still teeming with people displaced by the January earthquake.
“There’s no reason to anticipate that this wouldn’t spread widely,” said Joia Mukherjee, chief medical officer for Partners In Health, a Boston-based relief organization that runs three hospitals in the area.
The acute bacterial illness, spread primarily through contaminated drinking water, has struck more than 2,000 people throughout the farming valley along the Artibonite River, with the highest number in the port city of St. Marc.
Officials feared the disease could reach the capital, Port-au-Prince, 55 miles to the south, where hundreds of thousands of people are living in fetid conditions in the camps.
This is the first outbreak of cholera in Haiti in more than a century. It is unclear whether the massive displacement of people to the Artibonite Valley after the earthquake may have created the unsanitary conditions that allow such a disease to spread. But Haiti’s public water system has long been one of the worst in the world, and health officials have perennially warned of an epidemic.
The World Health Organization says less than half the country uses “improved drinking water sources,” and a 2008 Partners In Health report found that 70% of Haitians lacked continuous direct access to clean water.
Cholera causes such severe diarrhea and vomiting that people can die of dehydration in little more than a few hours. It spreads rapidly when infected fecal matter enters the water supply.
Speaking via a teleconference, Mukherjee said officials have confirmed that the water of the Artibonite River was one source for the contamination, but expected there to be others.
“The wells in St. Marc are too shallow and contaminated with sea water as well as surface waste water,” she said.
Despite fears that the disease could reach the densely populated capital, Mukherjee said it was harder to end an epidemic in rural areas, where people are scattered and get their water from myriad sources. Most of the displaced people in tent camps in Port-au-Prince have access to clean water provided by relief organizations, said Julie Schindall, spokeswoman for Oxfam, which she said provides an estimated 315,000 people with clean water.
The cluster of international groups responsible for water and sanitation in the wake of the earthquake met in St. Marc on Friday to coordinate a response.
“It’s going to take a serious mobilization,” Schindall said. “Luckily, we have a lot of stock in the country.”
Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization, said the disease was relatively simple to treat, with drinkable salt solutions that help rehydrate patients and reduce the risk of severe diarrhea. The best way to prevent infection is to keep food and water clean and wash hands often.
He said Haitians may be more vulnerable to widespread infection because they lack resistance to the disease. It was unclear how the bacterium was introduced after so long an absence.
Andrus said the first “suggestion” of the disease emerged Sunday, with reports of an abnormally high number of diarrhea cases in the area. It was later determined to be cholera.
He said his group was sending epidemiologists from Port-au-Prince and outside Haiti to deal with the outbreak.
Cholera kills between 100,000 and 120,000 people worldwide every year, often in regional epidemics. This month, an outbreak in central Africa has killed 1,879 people. The disease was absent from the Western Hemisphere until 1991 when it killed nearly 3,000 people in Peru and spread throughout Latin America.
Times staff writer Ken Ellingwood in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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COMMENT:HAITIAN-TRUTH.ORG
Not a good time to say “I told you so.”….but we tried to get the CDC and others to prepare for a potential cholera epidemic. Conditions were classic in their form, but nothing happened….until now and there is not anything near the preparation for this….that there should have been.
The UN is running around, looking for re-hydration powder and antibiotics.
We had a supply of 20 cases on hand, but this is a mere grain of sand in face of the imminent threat.
The conditions in Haiti are set for a major outbreak.
We could lose thousands….tens of thousands if action is not immediate and effective.
Na sispann efase dokimante m yo sou sit, omwen, kek moun ta li yo epi yo ta pataje lide sa yo avek lot moun yo nan popilasyon an, konsa, anpil moun ta rive sove lavi yo anba gwo jenosid sa a.
Mwen pa mande pou nou ban m okenn reson pou sa, men, sa nou pa konprann nan seke, pou chak nivo sosyal ann Ayiti, genyen yon fom de jenosid ki deja deside pou yo.
Na konprann tou ke Syel la ak Te a ta pito rankontre pou fe yon sel olye pou Bondye ta kite eleksyon kokayin pou jouke sou pouvwa peyi a, plis kriminel ki deja ap patisipe nan plan jenosid la sou pep Ayisyen an.
Daye, menm kandida yo pa alabri.Mwen te deja di nou ke, pou fason gouvenman an jere katastwof la, nou kapab konprann koman gouvenman sa a ap fe sa li kapab pou ekstemine tout popilasyon an.Se yon mwen kriminel k ap aji nan peyi a. Ayiti pa t janm nan koze kolera.
Depi 1986, kriminel yo debake, mete pep la nan lari, kraze tout estrikti peyi a. Ebyen, men rezilta a. lontan, kondisyon dijyen se te bon bagay. Avek SNEM, tout rakwen te aspeje, tout moun te sou medikaman, Duvalier te fe prev li antanke medsen. Tandiske, Preval, Alexis, ak tout lot yo di yo se teknisyen, epi kom agwonom k ap dirije pouvwa a, yo pa remet anyen, grangou ravaje trip moun yo. Gouvenman an vole tout resous ak lajan peyi a. Neg Latibonit sa yo papa, gen tan san wont.
Tout milyon k ap gaspiye pou fe eleksyon sa yo, ta byen itil pou deplase moun yo anba tant yo, gaye yo atrave peyi a, pou yo ta chape anba jenosid la. Men se pa sa yo we. Ebyen, kolera a, pral fe yo konn joj.
Se dilere, men, pep sa a tou pa konn wol li. Depi yo jwenn tafya ak kokayim yo santi yo bon. Ebyen, na reflechi.
Haiti Moses (jeriko), please make your comments shorter with less repeating of the words that you put on other postings.