Death in the Time of Cholera

Among the stories finding little traction these days in the press, clearly focused on the horrors in quake-ravaged Japan, is the lingering aftermath of another great earthquake, the January 12, 2010 7.0 temblor near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The numbers in that catastrophe remain staggering: “An estimated three million people were affected by the quake; the Haitian government reported that an estimated 316,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless.” Wikipedia. At least Japan had solid building codes and the economic wherewithal to implement the necessary extra construction costs; clearly Haiti didn’t... and even with the outpouring of international relief, still does not.

It’s that homeless number that generates the problems... more importantly the hundreds of thousands who remain “homeless” to this day. But Haiti still grapples with temporary/makeshift “housing” (including massive “tent cities”), unsecure water supplies and exposure to open sewage drains... people jammed together in the most unsanitary living conditions, one where another killer lurks with malevolent glee: cholera. Well over a year after that debacle, things appear to be getting worse in Haiti. “There could be nearly twice as many cases of the potentially deadly diarrheal disease -- an estimated 779,000 -- between March and November of this year, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and Harvard Medical School...

“‘The epidemic is not likely to be short-term,’ Dr. Sanjay Basu, a UCSF medical resident, said in a university news release. ‘It is going to be larger than predicted in terms of sheer numbers and will last far longer than the initial projections.’... The cholera epidemic erupted in Haiti after last year's devastating earthquake. Cholera -- spread from person-to-person through contaminated food and water -- can be deadly if untreated. In most cases, treatment for the diarrhea caused by the disease involves rehydration with salty liquids.” BusinessWeek.com, March 15^th. Projection are for a further 11,000 deaths over the next eight months.

The “little things” that can be done actually won’t cost very much, but will the world come to Haiti’s rescue to make sure that they do? “The researchers also examined the impact of making clean water more available and the use of vaccines or antibiotics. They found that a 1 percent decrease in the number of people who drink contaminated water would prevent more than 100,000 cases of cholera and about 1,500 deaths this year... In addition, simply offering vaccination to an estimated 10 percent of the population could save about 900 lives, and more widespread use of antibiotics could prevent 9,000 cases of cholera and about 1,300 deaths.” BusinessWeek.com. Clearly, there are steps which sound donors can take to correct this ignominious situation. Are you in? I am.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it’s easy to forget this impoverished Caribbean nation... but not if I have anything to say about it.