HAITI/SWITZERLAND: Displaced Haitians voice concern over cholera epidemic; government takes measures to protect city dwellers from disease

Record ID: 345829

  • Title: HAITI/SWITZERLAND: Displaced Haitians voice concern over cholera epidemic; government takes measures to protect city dwellers from disease
  • Date: 23rd October 2010
  • Summary: SICK CHILD SLEEPING ON FLOOR
  • Embargoed: 7th November 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,Health
  • Reuters ID: LVAC8PRYCQN392NIXZXSJQ5IEYC8
  • Story Text: Haiti's government and its aid partners fought on Friday to contain a cholera epidemic that has killed at least 140 people in the nation's worst medical emergency since the Jan.12 earthquake.
    Amid fears the deadly disease could spread to the crowded quake survivors' camps in the wrecked capital, where some 1.5 million people are living under tents and tarpaulins, the government announced an emergency prevention program.
    But at this camp in Corail, residents - crowded round a faucet to gather water - complained that they did not have access to a clean water supply.
    "We don't have money to buy treated water, we drink it from the faucet, so we want people to bring us cleaner water, because we've been advised not to drink this water, that has not been treated. People are dying, we are not sure what's going on, but we are obliged to drink this water, this is all we have. I would love the government to send us better water so we can drink, here in Corail, we have a lot of problems," said one camp resident.
    Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said measures were in place to prevent the spread of the disease to crowded camps.
    "The concern for the government... we are taking measures to avoid that. First, where we are at the camps right now, we don't have any cases of disease, right now, it's really localised until now, but we are taking measures, not only surveillance measures to be sure that there is no cases reported. We are trying to inform specifically the people of the camps because clearly they are more at risk from the conditions they are living. As you know, we try to provide them with clean water. We insist on hygienic measures, washing your hands, feet, things like that, but we are monitoring very closely what is happening in the camps right now," Bellerive said.
    The World Health Organization (WHO) said the virulent diarrheal disease, which had affected more than 1,500 people in central Haiti, would be the first cholera epidemic in a century in the disaster-prone Caribbean nation. It said it did not know how serious the outbreak could be.
    "We know the reports that say there are over 1,000 cases so this certainly seems to be having an impact, a big impact in the area north of Port-au-Prince, so how big it is, how far it will spread, is really impossible to predict at this point," said Gregory Hartl, Team Leader for Communications, Global Alert and Response Operations with the World Health Organisation.
    The Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies were rushing doctors, medical supplies and clean water to Saint-Marc in the Artibonite region, the outbreak zone north of Port-au-Prince.
    Reports of more cases were coming in from the Lower Artibonite and Central Plateau regions.
    Cholera usually comes from consuming water or food contaminated by cholera bacteria and is not likely to spread from person to person.
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