Cholera Cases Emerge in Haiti's Capital
By Ansel Herz
Inter Press Service
October 24, 2010
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53269

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 24, 2010 (IPS) - Days after an
outbreak of cholera began in Haiti's rural Artibonite
region, killing at least 200 people, there are now five
confirmed cases of cholera in the busy capital city.

The cases "do not represent spread of the epidemic"
because they were infected in central Haiti, according
to a bulletin circulated by Haiti's U.N. peacekeeping
mission with the heading "Key Messaging", obtained by
IPS.

"The fact that these cases were picked up and responded
to so fast demonstrates that the reporting systems for
epidemic management we have put in place are
functioning," it concludes.

Residents of the capital city are not so confident.

"It's killing people - of course, I'm scared. We're in
the mouth of death," 25-year-old Boudou Lunis, one of
1.3 million people made homeless by the January
earthquake and still living in temporary settlements,
told the Miami Herald.

Radio Boukman lies at the heart of Cite Soleil, an
impoverished slum crisscrossed by foul trash-filled
canals where cholera could be devastating.

The station has received no public health messages for
broadcast from authorities, producer Edwine Adrien told
IPS on Saturday, four days after reports of cholera-
related deaths first emerged.

At a small, desolate camp of ripped tents nearby, a
gleaming water tank is propped up on bricks.

Camp-dwellers said it was installed by the International
Organisation for Migration last week, more than nine
months after the January earthquake damaged their homes.

But it's empty because no organisation has filled it
with water.

"We need treated water to drink," a young man named
Charlot told IPS matter-of-factly.

Cholera, transmissible by contaminated water and food,
could be reaching far beyond the capital city.

There are suspected cases of the disease in Haiti's
North and South departments, according to the Pan-
American Health Organisation. Altogether, at least 2,600
people have contracted the illness.

In Lafiteau, a 30-minute drive from Port-au-Prince, Dr.
Pierre Duval said he had stabilised two cholera-infected
men in the town's single hospital, but could not handle
more than six more patients. One died Saturday.

All of them came from St. Marc, near the epicentre of
the epidemic.

The main hospital in St. Marc is crowded with the
infected.

Supplies of oral rehydration salts were spotty when he
arrived Friday after rushing from Port-au-Prince, U.S.
medic Riaan Roberts told IPS.

"We first talked to some lady from the U.N. who told us,
'Oh I have to go to a meeting, I'll mention your names,
but just come back tomorrow,'" he said. "These
microcosms of operational logistics are just beyond
them."

Roberts said a Doctors Without Borders team quickly put
his skills to use, adding, "[The U.N.] is so top-heavy
with bureaucracy that they can't effectively react to
these small outbreaks which quickly snowball and spread
across an area."

On the dusty highway connecting Haiti's stricken central
region to Port-au-Prince, buses and tap-taps filled with
people sped in both directions.

There were no signs of checkpoints or travel
restrictions near the city.

At a Friday meeting convened by the Haitian government's
Ministry of Water and Sanitation, "There were
conversations around shutting down schools and
transportation routes," said Nick Preneta, deputy
director of SOIL, a group that installs composting
toilets in displacement camps.

"But if that's the conversation now, however many hours
after the first confirmed case, it's already too late,"
he continued.

"One of the recommendations was to concentrate public
health education at traffic centres... there were a lot
of no- brainers at the meeting," Preneta said.

Cholera bacteria can cause fatal diarrhea and vomiting
after incubating for up to five days, allowing people
who appear healthy to travel and infect others.

The medical organisation Partners in Health calls it "a
disease of poverty" caused by lack of access to clean
water.

The Artibonite River, running through an area of central
Haiti known as "the breadbasket" for its rice farmers,
is considered the likely source of the epidemic after
recent heavy rains and flooding.

Analysts say the regional agrarian economy has been
devastated by years of cheap U.S. imports of rice to
Haiti.

_____________________________________________

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