Haiti - Epidemic : Risk of worsening of cholera in the Metropolitan Area
Dr. Jocelyne Pierre Louis, Director of Promotion of the Department of Public Health and Population (MSPP) said on Friday, expected in the coming days, an outbreak of the cholera epidemic, particularly in Port-au-Prince and the Metropolitan Region due to the unsanitary condition of the city.
The post-election riots that erupted in several parts of the country and particularly in Port-au-Prince have plunged the capital into a state of unhealthiness major. The waste bins were scattered throughout the city, faeces were scattered in the streets, following the reversal of portable toilets, and thousands of protesters have ignored basic rules of hygiene, eating and drinking without any precautions.
Dr. Jocelyne Pierre Louis, noted that these are ideal conditions for an explosion of the epidemic. Stressing the need to take urgent action to avert catastrophe. She recalled that the Cholera Treatment Centers (CTC) located in the hospitals of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Hospital of the State University of Haiti (HUEH) work as usual and demand citizens to get there very early in suspected cases of diarrhea.
Since the outbreak of cholera has appeared in the country (October 19, 2010), 97.595 people were infected and treated, 46.749 people were hospitalized and 2.193 people died. According to the latest report of the MSPP, dated December 6, 2010. Significant figures, but largely underestimated by the government according to health experts from the UN, who believe that these figures could be the double of those published.
