LEADALL: Aid groups in Haiti scramble to contain cholera outbreak

Oct 22, 2010, 22:25 GMT

The Haitian government confirmed Friday that at least 140 people have died in a cholera outbreak.

More than 1,500 people have fallen ill with cholera in the Lower Artibonite region, 80 kilometres north of Port-au-Prince, Haitian officials said.

The outbreak follows the January 12 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people in the poorest country in the Americas and wrecked the capital. Even before the quake, the Caribbean country had been hit hard by hurricanes in recent years.

Cholera is an intestinal infection caused by bacteria transmitted through fecal contamination of water or food. The chief symptoms are diarrhoea and vomiting, which can quickly lead to severe, sometimes fatal dehydration.

Pan American Health Organization Deputy Director Jon Andrus told a briefing in Washington that specimens from hospitalized patients have been tested at Haiti's US-supported national laboratory, which confirmed the presence of cholera.

'The reported cases and deaths have come primarily from areas where there was no direct damage from the earthquake, but where there are vulnerable populations living in impoverished situations,' he said.

Federica Nogarotto, Doctors Without Borders' field coordinator in St Marc, Haiti, where the outbreak was centred, said that there were 'significant numbers' of cholera patients at the city's St Nicholas Hospital, which lacks 'the capacity to handle a cholera emergency.'

'The most important thing is to isolate the cholera patients there from the rest of the patients, in order to best treat those people who are infected and to prevent further spread of the disease,' Nogarotto said. 'This will also enable the hospital to run as normally as possible. We are setting up a separate, isolated cholera treatment centre now.'

Patients at the hospital were reportedly being treated outdoors with intravenous fluids to fight dehydration. Aid agencies said they were deploying additional personnel and resources to the Saint-Marc area.

The earthquake ravaged zone, where 1.3 million people are still living in tent camps, has not been hit, said Catherine Bragg, UN deputy humanitarian emergency coordinator. She just returned to New York from a visit in Haiti to survey conditions for people displaced by the earthquake and described conditions in the four camps she visited as 'really awful.'

A health and sanitation aid worker in Haiti told the German Press Agency dpa that the outbreak appears to have occurred in a relatively affluent area, raising concerns for other areas with weaker sanitation systems.

'If the wave of disease reaches Port-au-Prince, where families are living in overcrowded, unhygienic camps, then it will be disastrous,' said aid worker Estrella Serrano.

Bragg said Friday in New York that the UN was rushing health workers and medical aid to Haiti, along with more than 300,000 anti- bacterial tablets and 10,000 boxes of water-sanitizing tablets, plus clean water and soap.

In Washington, the US State Department said that the US Agency for International Development and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention were on the ground in Haiti and providing oral rehydration kits.

Experts are baffled by the cholera outbreak, Haiti's first in decades. Cholera was unexpected because the disease was not recently present, but public health workers have been monitoring for outbreaks of acute diarrhoea.

'Up to now we had not seen clusters of acute diarrhoea of this size,' the Pan American Health Organization's Andrus said.

It remained unclear how cholera could have spread in Haiti. Haitian authorities fear that recent heavy rains had caused latrines to overflow and displaced contaminated water into the Artibonite River.

World Health Organization spokeswoman Aphluck Bhatiasevi in Geneva said the organization is sending specialists to Haiti.

'What is required for immediate treatment of patients with cholera is rehydration. If treatment is provided early - and treatment is simple - many lives can be saved,' Bhatiasevi said.

Andrus described the basic treatment: 'If patients are given oral rehydration salts promptly to replace lost fluids, they can nearly always be cured.'

'The bottom line in response to this current situation is to minimize the number of people infected through mitigating measures such as frequent hand washing, personal hygiene, safe water use and food preparation,' he said, 'while at the same time minimizing the number of deaths through effective case management that prevents severe dehydration.'

Read more about Haiti Health