Haiti sees 800 new cholera cases after hurricane

Via France24.com: Haiti sees 800 new cholera cases after hurricane. Excerpt:

Haiti recorded nearly 800 cases of cholera the week after it was ravaged by Hurricane Matthew, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday, as health officials grapple to contain the disease. 

There had been previous indications that Matthew triggered a surge in new cases but conclusively testing samples had been difficult in the aftermath of the storm, WHO's representative in Haiti, Jean-Luc Poncelet told reporters in Geneva.  

With the testing system operational again, health officials have confirmed "the majority of suspected cases," Poncelet said.  

Citing ministry of health figures, he said 773 cases had been registered between October 9 and 15.

The ministry takes its time posting routine cholera numbers on its own website, where the latest weekly update is for week 27 (July 3-9) and the latest daily update is September 1. But even those numbers are useful for comparison. In week 27, 321 cholera cases were seen nationwide, 260 of them serious enough to require hospitalization. Three people died.

The ministry did publish a note on October 10, saying Sud department had 117 cases and 17 deaths as of October 9, while Grand Anse department had 166 cases and three deaths. But that seems to be the most recent tally on the site.

 

Meanwhile PAHO has published an October 18 report on Cholera in the Americas, saying:

In Haiti, a total of 28,559 suspected cholera cases, including 267 related deaths (case fatality rate: 0.9%), were reported from EW 1 to EW 37 of 2016.

The number of cases and deaths reported up to EW 37 of 2016 exceeds the number of cases reported in 2014 and the national case fatality rate remains as high as reported in 2015; note, the case fatality rate in 2014 was higher (1.1%).

But even PAHO seems to have no more recent numbers than those of October 10.