UNICEF Rapidly Responds To Prevent Cholera Spread

UNICEF Rapidly Responds To Prevent Haiti Cholera Outbreak Spreading

Oct 26 2010: With patients dying within three hours of becoming infected with an unknown strain of cholera, UNICEF and partners have rushed emergency supplies to help combat and contain the outbreak.

The outbreak has occurred in the southern part of the Artibonite region, about one and a half hours north of the capital city of Port au Prince.

The death toll so far exceeds 150 people with more than 1,500 infected and being treated at medical centres. About 150,000 people live in affected region.

UNICEF’s New Zealand executive director Dennis McKinlay says UNICEF and its partners are working swiftly to contain the disease.

“The concern is that the cholera outbreak could extend to both the camps that have been set up for refugees from the January earthquake, where people live very closely confined - and the earthquake-affected areas of Port-au-Prince,” he says.

“Children under five are amongst the most vulnerable due to the severe dehydration caused by diarrhoea.”

Local health authorities say the deaths typically occur within three to four hours of the symptoms, particularly at community levels.

UNICEF sources in Haiti say this is the first time the disease has appeared in the country for over a century. The origin of the outbreak remains unknown and is being investigated by the World Health Organization and the United States Centre for Disease Control.

“Cholera is not endemic in Haiti therefore the local people do not know how to react or handle it. UNICEF’s health and communications teams are currently developing a rapid campaign to explain to those in the affected area what to do.”

“It’s fortunate the outbreak was not during the monsoon season, or the summer, but as Haiti is hot for most of the year, the cholera outbreak is of real concern, because it spreads so rapidly, and is so deadly.”

UNICEF quickly dispatched specialized water and sanitation, health, and logistics teams to help efforts on the ground. These supplies will complement prepositioned the stocks.

In order to help manage and contain the spread of the outbreak, UNICEF teams are conducting assessments and advising on patient isolation and management of treatment as well as training of the local staff, who are unfamiliar with this disease.

Along with its partners, UNICEF’s water and sanitation teams have been coordinating assessments to develop action plans in chlorinating wells and intensifying hand washing with soap promotions.

Safe drinking water and sanitation facilities were inadequate or inexistent in Haiti prior to the earthquake. Sanitation coverage was only 17 per cent, and half the rural population practiced open defecation.

Cholera is a highly infectious abdominal disease that spreads through contact with contaminated water or food. Symptoms include severe and profuse watery diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal pains. If not treated, patients can die from severe dehydration. The disease can be prevented by proper hygiene and sanitation practices, including provision and use of safe drinking water.

Twenty-month-old Clarena lies nestled in her uncle’s arms. Her mother had brought her to Saint Nicholas Hospital three days previous, leaving her seven other children in the care of relatives.

Twenty-month-old Clarena lies nestled in her uncle’s arms. Her mother, Rosedani, brought her to Saint Nicholas Hospital three days previous, leaving her seven other children in the care of relatives.

“I’m very worried,” Rosedini admits. “Very worried.”

Clarena is among hundreds of cholera-diseased patients who are overwhelming the already meagre resources of this local hospital, 70 kilometres north of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Young and old lie dazed and distracted on makeshift beds spilling into the hospital courtyard. They rest immobile, tied to intravenous bottles filled with saline solution to combat dehydration. Tired relatives stand by holding the bottle a loft. Men, women, and children alike lie wrapped with diapers to stem the constant flow of bodily fluids.

The uninfected, mostly family members and local and international volunteers, mill about the hospital’s crowded courtyards, many with their noses filled with cotton believing this alone will protect them from infection. The hospital gates open regularly to admit more of the infected, some arriving in the back of pickups, others on motorbike sandwiched between mother and father.

Emmanuela waits quietly for additional medication, having already received antibiotics and some sterilized water from a hospital worker. Like so many here at Saint Nicholas Hospital, she and her mother came from outside the city seeking medical care.

www.unicef.org.nz

ENDS

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