MSPP has posted more cholera statistics on its Documentation page, taking us from February 26 to March 4. As usual Grande Anse isn't reporting, and the numbers are doubtful in other ways, but here they are:
Total cases as of March 4: 649,449
Total deaths: 8,057 (only 5 deaths are reported in the new period, but the last death total, as of February 26, was 8,036).
To try to get a broader sense of the impact of cholera, I've gone back to the MSPP numbers for January-February 2011 and January-February 2012. They aren't any more trustworthy than the current numbers, but they give us a rough idea.
On January 1, 2011, cholera had been spreading for about 10 weeks, since about October 20, 2010. MSPP on that reported a total of 171,304 cases, with 999 new cases identified on that day alone, and 3,651 deaths from cholera.
On March 1, 2011, 81,336 more cases had been reported, along with a total of 4,672 deaths. So over a thousand people died of cholera in two months.
On January 1, 2012, the total cases were 523,993, meaning 352,689 people had contracted cholera in 2011. In the next two months, 6,960 more fell ill, for a cumulative total of 530,953 by March 1. Twenty-two cholera deaths were reported in the period.
On January 1, 2013, cases totalled 637,138. So 113,145 more Haitians contracted cholera in 2012. Deaths totalled 8,019, so 1,001 people had died in that year. Two months later, the number rose by 12,311, to 649,449. Deaths in those two months totalled 134.
Compared to the horrendous winter of 2010-11, Haiti is doing relatively well. But compared to the winter of 2011-12, it's doing worse, with almost twice as many cases as last year, and six times as many deaths.
For all my moaning about the lapses of MSPP, I'm far more disappointed in the response of the world health community and the foreign media. Neither has treated the outbreak and its causes with anything like the attention they deserve. And that, I'm sorry to say, seems to be because neither has treated Haiti and the Haitians with the respect they deserve.
