Via Partners in Health, aka Zanmi Lasante, easily the most credible NGO in the country: Cholera cases spike in Haiti due to rainy season. Excerpt:
Zanmi Lasante-supported cholera treatment centers and treatment units in Port-au-Prince, the Lower Artibonite, and the Central Plateau regions are seeing a worrisome rise in cholera cases.
Though official numbers won’t be available until next week, Dr. Maxi Raymonville, ZL’s Director of Women’s Health, reports that the organization’s hospitals and clinics experienced a significant jump in the number of people contracting cholera during the first weeks of April.
At the ZL cholera treatment centers and units in Mirebalais, near the site of the original outbreak, numbers were roughly triple what they were just a few weeks ago.
In March, ZL saw a total of 5,136 patients presenting with symptoms of cholera across all 14 of its sites in Haiti. Of those patients seen, 2,459 required hospitalization for cholera.
To Dr Raymonville and his colleagues, the spike in cases comes as no surprise.
ZL knew that cases of cholera, like any waterborne illness or diarrheal disease, were likely to surge at the onset of the rainy season. While Dr Raymonville's team was prepared to treat more patients, he remains concerned that flooding will prevent people from accessing cholera treatment quickly. Since cholera often debilitates a person in less than 24 hours, it is critical that a patient be able to access medical care quickly.
The rainy season arrives as Zanmi Lasante is making a concerted effort to transition its cholera work from an emergency response posture to an integrated proactive and preventative approach in recognizing that the disease is now endemic to Haiti.
Yet, flooding at facilities in Boucan Carre and Thomonde is making it difficult to treat patients, and therefore inhibiting ZL’s ability to shift away from an emergency response mindset.
