Cholera has killed 200 in Haiti

[Luissa]

The death toll from a cholera epidemic in Haiti topped 200 on Saturday and fears of it propagating in the crowded, earthquake-ravaged capital increased after five cases were detected in the city.

U.N. officials stressed that the five cases, the first confirmed in the capital since the epidemic started, were people who had become infected in the main outbreak zone of Artibonite north of Port-au-Prince and had subsequently traveled to the city where they fell sick.

"They were very quickly diagnosed and isolated," U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Imogen Wall told Reuters, citing information from Haitian health authorities. "This is not a new location of infection."

But prevention measures and surveillance were being increased in Port-au-Prince, with its squalid sprawling slums and about 1.3 million survivors of the January 12 earthquake packed into tent and tarpaulin camps. All are highly vulnerable to a virulent diarrheal disease like cholera.

Haiti cholera toll tops 200, five cases in capital - Yahoo! News

 

[waltky]

And now it's here!...

Officials Confirm 3 Cases of Cholera in NYC
February 06, 2011 | New York City officials have confirmed that three New Yorkers contracted cholera while in the Dominican Republic for a wedding.

The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, where thousands have died from cholera. A medical epidemiologist for the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene told The New York Times Saturday that all three New Yorkers who were infected have recovered.

Dr. Sharon Balter said the city typically sees an average of one case of cholera per year. City health officials are now working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to determine whether the current strain is similar to the one that has been raging in Haiti since October.

Three cholera deaths have been reported in the Dominican Republic.

Read more: Officials Confirm 3 Cases of Cholera in NYC - FoxNews.com

 

[waltky]

Haiti needs more money to fight cholera epidemic...

Haiti Cholera Operations Seriously Underfunded
February 21, 2011 - The United Nations is holding a special meeting with donor countries to drum up support for its cholera treatment and control operations in Haiti. It says it has received less than half of the $175 million it needs to carry out its life-saving programs in the country.

The United Nations reports cholera cases throughout Haiti are slowly declining. But says the emergency is far from over, as the death rate in remote rural areas remains very high. Latest figures from the Haitian government cite more than 231,000 reported cases and more than 4,500 cholera deaths since the epidemic began in October. Health agencies say this is the first outbreak of cholera in Haiti in at least 100 years. But the agencies warn now that it is present in the country, cholera will continue to be a problem for months and years to come.

U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs says it is critical to strengthen treatment programs. She says the shortage of non-governmental agencies to treat the sick in difficult to reach mountain villages is very worrisome. “There are two aspects of this problem,” Byrs said. “Some NGOs are working in emergency relief assistance. And, these NGOs have finished their job and now they leave. But some of them need funding, they have not even enough funding to implement their projects. That is why we urgently need the money for our appeal, which is $175 million.”

The World Health Organization says it is trying to keep the anti-cholera efforts from collapsing. The U.N. says it has received about $80 million, less than half of its appeal. WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib says her agency is working with the Haitian Ministry of Health to replace NGOs that were running cholera centers. She says these vital projects are increasingly being integrated in the country’s overall health-management programs. “There is an exit strategy put in place by WHO as the lead health organization with the Ministry of Health that the cholera centers can be run by the local health authorities ... at the beginning, it was a new disease for the country,” Chaib said. “So, they needed really to learn how to manage it. Now, it is done. Many people know how to not get infected by cholera.”

Chaib says WHO is concerned about the possible spread of cholera during the upcoming Carnival season from contaminated food and drink. She says health authorities are running an information campaign warning people of the dangers and providing tips on how they can protect themselves from getting the disease. When cholera first erupted, mortality rates were as high as nine percent. National mortality rates are now down to two percent. And, spokeswoman Chaib says the World Health Organization is working to bring that rate to less than one percent.

Source

 

[waltky]

No sh*t?...

Haiti recycling waste into fuel to combat cholera
Tue, Apr 19, 2011 - Desperately poor Haiti is finding a cheap source of fuel in recycling human excrement, a move that could help put a dent in a cholera epidemic and slow the country’s pervasive deforestation.

The “biodigester,” which converts organic waste to biogas and a liquid fertilizer rich in nutrients, requires little infrastructure: toilets linked to a sealed, brick-lined well connected to a basin. Seventy of these devices are up and running, while another 70 are in the works. Deprived of air, the bacteria thriving in human excrement eat 85 percent of the refuse while producing methane gas, said Martin Wartchow, pointing his lighter above a small tube hanging out of the rank. A powerful flame was immediately set ablaze.

“The remaining 15 percent of organic waste is thrown out with the excess water in a green area where they biodegrade,” said the hydrologist, who is working with the Brazilian nongovernmental group Viva Rio in Port-au-Prince. “Not a single chemical product is used and at the end of the line, the water we collect is completely clean,” he said. Plunging his hand in a basin filled with filtered, clear and odorless liquid, Wartchow said: “We even raise fish here.”

Recently completed at a Viva Rio center that hosts more than 600 young Haitians each day, the installation is due to be linked to a cafeteria under construction to replace wood coals. Indeed, engineers behind the project hope to reverse Haitians’ heavy reliance on wood fuel for cooking and heating due to the lack of cheap sources of energy in the country, the poorest in the Western hemisphere.

More FEATURE: Haiti recycling waste into fuel to combat cholera - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

Haitians were right after all...

Haiti cholera outbreak linked to peacekeepers, UN admits
05 May 2011 - Last year's deadly cholera outbreak in Haiti, which killed 4,500 people, was linked to Nepalese UN peacekeepers who were stationed at a base in the country, a UN panel has conceded.

The panel found that “evidence overwhelmingly supports” the conclusion that the epidemic began via the contamination of the Artibonite River near the troops' base, with a south Asian strain of cholera. In a report published on Wednesday night, it also listed a series of measures that the UN should introduce to ensure its peacekeepers do not introduce cholera to the countries in which they work. But the panel refused to single out the troops for blame, stating that Haitians – who had recently suffered a devastating earthquake – should not have been using the river for drinking or washing.

The group, convened by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary-General, insisted the crisis was due to a “confluence of circumstances” and “not the fault of, or deliberate action of, a group or individual”. Haitians began contracting cholera, a water-borne disease, in October 2010, 10 months after the country was struck by a devastating earthquake that killed an estimated 250,000 people. Various theories circulated about how the disease, which had not been detected in Haiti in a century, had arrived. These included the evolution of existing diseases or the result of tectonic plate shifts.

But most fingers were pointed at Nepalese UN troops at a base in Mirebalais, around the centre of the country. Nepal had recently suffered an outbreak, and Haitian cases began soon after the troops' arrival. A report published in December by Renaud Piarroux, a French specialist who is one of the world's most eminent cholera experts, said that the troops were indeed most likely to blame. Dr Piarroux, who was sent by France to assist Haitian officials, concluded the epidemic originated in a tributary of Haiti's Artibonite river, next to the UN base. “No other hypothesis could be found,” he said.

Protesters in Port-au-Prince armed with rocks attacked UN facilities and personnel in revenge. The new UN report found that the sanitation conditions at the peacekeepers' camp “were not sufficient to prevent fecal contamination” of the river's tributary system. It also said that bacteria from Haitian cases was found to be “very similar, but not identical, to the South Asian strains of cholera”, confirming that the outbreak “did not originate from the native environs of Haiti”.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Da fix is in...

US appeals court upholds UN immunity from Haiti cholera suit
Aug 19,`16 -- A U.S. federal appeals court has upheld the United Nations' immunity from a damage claim filed on behalf of 5,000 cholera victims who blame the U.N. for an epidemic of the deadly disease in Haiti.

In a decision issued late Thursday, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York affirmed a lower court's January 2015 dismissal of a lawsuit brought in the worst outbreak of cholera in recent history. "We have considered all of plaintiffs' arguments on appeal and find them to be without merit," the U.S. appellate judges said. The ruling came shortly after U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq referred to the United Nations' "own involvement" in the introduction of cholera to Haiti.

It was a significant statement because the U.N. has for years kept silent about allegations its peacekeepers introduced cholera to Haiti. It has answered lawsuits on behalf of victims filed in U.S. courts by claiming immunity under a 1946 convention. Haq said in a statement that the U.N. needs to do "much more" to end the suffering of those affected and pledged that "a significantly new set of U.N. actions" will be presented publicly within the next two months. But Haq reiterated that the U.N.'s legal position in claiming immunity hasn't changed.

A girl receives treatment for cholera symptoms at a Doctors Without Borders, MSF, cholera clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A U.S. federal appeals court has upheld on Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016, the United Nations’ immunity from a damage claim filed on behalf of 5,000 cholera victims who blame the U.N. for an epidemic of the deadly disease in Haiti.​

Brian Concannon, executive director of the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, said advocates for Haitian cholera victims will be watching the U.N.'s actions closely. They have 90 days to decide whether to file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. "We will decide how to proceed based on whether the U.N.'s actions fulfill the cholera victims' rights to an effective remedy," Concannon said in a statement.

Since its introduction to Haiti in October 2010, cholera has killed more than 9,300 Haitians and sickened over 800,000. It showed up some 10 months after a devastating earthquake in the south of Haiti, deepening the country's misery at a time when it was ill-equipped to cope with another crisis. The waterborne disease is now considered "endemic" in Haiti, meaning it's an illness that occurs regularly. Researchers say there is ample scientific evidence the disease was introduced to Haiti's biggest river by inadequately treated sewage from a base of U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal, one of the units that have rotated in and out of a multinational force in Haiti since 2004.

News from The Associated Press

 

[2aguy]

The death toll from a cholera epidemic in Haiti topped 200 on Saturday and fears of it propagating in the crowded, earthquake-ravaged capital increased after five cases were detected in the city.

U.N. officials stressed that the five cases, the first confirmed in the capital since the epidemic started, were people who had become infected in the main outbreak zone of Artibonite north of Port-au-Prince and had subsequently traveled to the city where they fell sick.

"They were very quickly diagnosed and isolated," U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Imogen Wall told Reuters, citing information from Haitian health authorities. "This is not a new location of infection."

But prevention measures and surveillance were being increased in Port-au-Prince, with its squalid sprawling slums and about 1.3 million survivors of the January 12 earthquake packed into tent and tarpaulin camps. All are highly vulnerable to a virulent diarrheal disease like cholera.

Haiti cholera toll tops 200, five cases in capital - Yahoo! News

Well...if the clinton's hadn't stolen money that was supposed to go to Haiti they might have been able to deal with the health issues .....but no.....the clinton's used the clinton foundation to steal that money......

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

Wash your salad good.