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Cholera outbreak creeps closer to Haiti's capital
Source: Agencies |
October 24, 2010, Sunday
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A SPREADING cholera outbreak in rural Haiti threatened to outpace aid groups as they stepped up efforts yesterday hoping to keep the disease from reaching the squalid camps of earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince.
Health officials said at least 208 people had died and 2,674 others were infected in an outbreak mostly centered in the Artibonite region north of the capital.
But the number of cases in towns near Port-au-Prince were rising, and officials worried the next target will be hundreds of thousands of Haitians left homeless by January's devastating quake and now living in camps across the capital.
"If the epidemic makes its way to Port-au-Prince, where children and families are living in unsanitary, overcrowded camps, the results could be disastrous," said Dr. Estrella Serrano, World Vision's emergency response health and nutrition manager.
Officials confirmed at least five cholera cases in Arcahaie, a town close to Port-au-Prince, and four cases in Limbe, a small northern municipality. Ten cases were reported in Gonaives, the largest city in the Artibonite, according to Partners in Health, a US-based humanitarian group.
The sick included 50 inmates at a prison in Mirebalais, just north of Port-au-Prince, Health Ministry director Gabriel Thimothe said.
Experts also were investigating possible cases in Croix-des-Bouquet, a suburb of the capital that could act as a transfer point of the disease because it has a widely used bus station, said Paul Namphy with Haiti's national water agency.
"This is a very mobile country," he said. "It can spread like wildfire."
Reports trickled in of patients seeking treatment in clinics closer to Port-au-Prince because the St. Nicholas hospital in the seaside city of St. Marc is overflowing, said Margaret Aguirre, an International Medical Corps spokeswoman.
Health officials said at least 208 people had died and 2,674 others were infected in an outbreak mostly centered in the Artibonite region north of the capital.
But the number of cases in towns near Port-au-Prince were rising, and officials worried the next target will be hundreds of thousands of Haitians left homeless by January's devastating quake and now living in camps across the capital.
"If the epidemic makes its way to Port-au-Prince, where children and families are living in unsanitary, overcrowded camps, the results could be disastrous," said Dr. Estrella Serrano, World Vision's emergency response health and nutrition manager.
Officials confirmed at least five cholera cases in Arcahaie, a town close to Port-au-Prince, and four cases in Limbe, a small northern municipality. Ten cases were reported in Gonaives, the largest city in the Artibonite, according to Partners in Health, a US-based humanitarian group.
The sick included 50 inmates at a prison in Mirebalais, just north of Port-au-Prince, Health Ministry director Gabriel Thimothe said.
Experts also were investigating possible cases in Croix-des-Bouquet, a suburb of the capital that could act as a transfer point of the disease because it has a widely used bus station, said Paul Namphy with Haiti's national water agency.
"This is a very mobile country," he said. "It can spread like wildfire."
Reports trickled in of patients seeking treatment in clinics closer to Port-au-Prince because the St. Nicholas hospital in the seaside city of St. Marc is overflowing, said Margaret Aguirre, an International Medical Corps spokeswoman.
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