Posts tagged cholera

Haiti Unprepared in the Face of Resurgent Cholera Cholera cases are on the rise in Haiti following the onset of the rainy season, and the country is not adequately prepared to combat the deadly disease, the international medical humanitarian organization MSF said today. “Too little has been done in terms of prevention to think that cholera would not surge again in 2012,” said Gaëtan Drossart, MSF head of mission in Haiti. “It is concerning that the health authorities are not better prepared and that they cling to reassuring messages that bear no resemblance to reality. There are many meetings going on between the government, the United Nations and their humanitarian partners, but there are few concrete solutions,” he said.Photo: Patients affected by cholera receive treatment at an MSF cholera treatment center in Port-au-Prince. Haiti 2011 © Frederik Matte/MSF

Haiti Unprepared in the Face of Resurgent Cholera

Cholera cases are on the rise in Haiti following the onset of the rainy season, and the country is not adequately prepared to combat the deadly disease, the international medical humanitarian organization MSF said today.

“Too little has been done in terms of prevention to think that cholera would not surge again in 2012,” said Gaëtan Drossart, MSF head of mission in Haiti. “It is concerning that the health authorities are not better prepared and that they cling to reassuring messages that bear no resemblance to reality. There are many meetings going on between the government, the United Nations and their humanitarian partners, but there are few concrete solutions,” he said.

Photo: Patients affected by cholera receive treatment at an MSF cholera treatment center in Port-au-Prince. Haiti 2011 © Frederik Matte/MSF

Haiti’s Rainy Season Brings Cholera Back to Port-au-Prince and Léogâne With the rainy season now underway in Haiti, MSF has seen an increase in the number of cholera patients. Admissions to MSF’s treatment centers in Port-au-Prince and Léogâne have more than tripled in less than one month. New patients arrive daily at MSF’s cholera treatment centers (CTCs). A woman named Marie was admitted to the Martissant CTC on April 16. “I had diarrhea and was vomiting a lot, then I fainted,” she recounted. “A relative brought me here because it is the center closest to where I live. The doctors told me that I had cholera and was dehydrated.” One hundred thirty-four other people like Marie arrived at the MSF center in Martissant between April 16 and 23 and nearly 400 more went to MSF’s other CTCs in Port-au-Prince and Léogâne. “Cholera is easy to treat but specialized treatment centers must be accessible and patients must be brought there as soon as possible once symptoms appear,” says Dr. Sophie Duterne, MSF’s medical coordinator in Haiti. “If left untreated, this disease can kill within a few hours. Treatment involves simple oral or intravenous rehydration, with antibiotics for the most severe cases. However, taking additional hygiene precautions and drinking disinfected water is still the best protection.” Since the first cases were identified in October 2010, more than 500,000 Haitians have contracted cholera.Photo: Haiti 2012 © Mathieu Fortoul/MSF Cholera patients recover in MSF’s Martissant CTC.

Haiti’s Rainy Season Brings Cholera Back to Port-au-Prince and Léogâne

With the rainy season now underway in Haiti, MSF has seen an increase in the number of cholera patients. Admissions to MSF’s treatment centers in Port-au-Prince and Léogâne have more than tripled in less than one month.

New patients arrive daily at MSF’s cholera treatment centers (CTCs). A woman named Marie was admitted to the Martissant CTC on April 16. “I had diarrhea and was vomiting a lot, then I fainted,” she recounted. “A relative brought me here because it is the center closest to where I live. The doctors told me that I had cholera and was dehydrated.” One hundred thirty-four other people like Marie arrived at the MSF center in Martissant between April 16 and 23 and nearly 400 more went to MSF’s other CTCs in Port-au-Prince and Léogâne.

“Cholera is easy to treat but specialized treatment centers must be accessible and patients must be brought there as soon as possible once symptoms appear,” says Dr. Sophie Duterne, MSF’s medical coordinator in Haiti. “If left untreated, this disease can kill within a few hours. Treatment involves simple oral or intravenous rehydration, with antibiotics for the most severe cases. However, taking additional hygiene precautions and drinking disinfected water is still the best protection.” Since the first cases were identified in October 2010, more than 500,000 Haitians have contracted cholera.

Photo: Haiti 2012 © Mathieu Fortoul/MSF Cholera patients recover in MSF’s Martissant CTC.

For First Time in Africa, MSF Responds to Cholera Outbreak in Guinea With Mass Vaccination Campaign After a cholera epidemic broke out in Guinea, MSF began a mass vaccination campaign, the first time the organization has done so in Africa. At present, teams are vaccinating more than 150,000 people in the Boffa region, near the capital of Conakry, using an oral vaccine designed to protect those who take it from contracting the disease. The first two phases of this campaign began on April 18. “The epidemic in Guinea was declared in February and Boffa Prefecture is currently where we are seeing the largest active outbreak,” said Charles Gaudry, head of mission for MSF in Guinea. “Since the beginning of the epidemic, 152 cases of cholera and six deaths have been reported. We aim to vaccinate around 155,000 people.”Photo: Guinea 2012 © MSF MSF staff delivering the cholera vaccine in Boffa Prefecture

For First Time in Africa, MSF Responds to Cholera Outbreak in Guinea With Mass Vaccination Campaign

After a cholera epidemic broke out in Guinea, MSF began a mass vaccination campaign, the first time the organization has done so in Africa. At present, teams are vaccinating more than 150,000 people in the Boffa region, near the capital of Conakry, using an oral vaccine designed to protect those who take it from contracting the disease. The first two phases of this campaign began on April 18.

“The epidemic in Guinea was declared in February and Boffa Prefecture is currently where we are seeing the largest active outbreak,” said Charles Gaudry, head of mission for MSF in Guinea. “Since the beginning of the epidemic, 152 cases of cholera and six deaths have been reported. We aim to vaccinate around 155,000 people.”

Photo: Guinea 2012 © MSF
MSF staff delivering the cholera vaccine in Boffa Prefecture

At first, Doctors Without Borders and the Cuban medical brigades, both self-financed, handled the overwhelming majority of cases. “We felt quite lonely at the beginning,” said Yann Libessart, spokesman for Doctors Without Borders. “It made no sense. Everybody was in Haiti. It was the biggest density of humanitarian actors in the world, and we two organizations were dealing with 80 percent of the cholera.”


Gaëtan Drossart, mission chief for Doctors Without Borders-Belgium, said the health cluster had good intentions, “but there’s a lot of meetings and a lot of blah blah blah.” He said other groups were limited by agreements with donors to working in the earthquake zone and could not redeploy quickly.

Deborah Sontag,
from the article: Global Failures on a Haitian Epidemic, New York Times—
Sunday April 1, 2012 
Read the rest of the article here.
In 2011, Chad and other sub-Saharan African countries were affected by a large-scale cholera epidemic. By late November, more than 17,200 cases of cholera (the largest number since 1996) and 459 deaths had been recorded. In August, during the height of the epidemic, up to 1,250 cases were recorded each week. One-third of those were in the capital city, N’Djamena. At that time, 350 national and international Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) employees were managing 23 health care facilities in Massakory, Am Timan, Abou Deia, Bongor, Mandelia, Pala, Fianga, Lere, Laï and N’Djamena. “The 2011 peak was the continuation of the epidemic that broke out in the region in 2010,” says Michel-Olivier Lacharité, MSF program manager in Chad. “This explains its two very specific features: an early increase in the number of cases, well before the rainy season, and a significant geographic spread, with 37 of the country’s 61 districts affected.” Photo: Chad 2011 © MSF

In 2011, Chad and other sub-Saharan African countries were affected by a large-scale cholera epidemic. By late November, more than 17,200 cases of cholera (the largest number since 1996) and 459 deaths had been recorded.

In August, during the height of the epidemic, up to 1,250 cases were recorded each week. One-third of those were in the capital city, N’Djamena. At that time, 350 national and international Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) employees were managing 23 health care facilities in Massakory, Am Timan, Abou Deia, Bongor, Mandelia, Pala, Fianga, Lere, Laï and N’Djamena. “The 2011 peak was the continuation of the epidemic that broke out in the region in 2010,” says Michel-Olivier Lacharité, MSF program manager in Chad. “This explains its two very specific features: an early increase in the number of cases, well before the rainy season, and a significant geographic spread, with 37 of the country’s 61 districts affected.”

Photo: Chad 2011 © MSF

One year after a devastating earthquake killed an estimated 222,000 people and left 1.5 million people homeless on January 12, 2010, Haitians continued to endure appalling living conditions amid a nationwide cholera outbreak, despite the largest humanitarian aid deployment in the world. Now two years later, MSF is increasing hospital capacity in earthquake-affected areas as 500,000 people are still officially displaced and access to health care is nearly non-existent. Photo: Haiti 2010 © Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

One year after a devastating earthquake killed an estimated 222,000 people and left 1.5 million people homeless on January 12, 2010, Haitians continued to endure appalling living conditions amid a nationwide cholera outbreak, despite the largest humanitarian aid deployment in the world.

Now two years later, MSF is increasing hospital capacity in earthquake-affected areas as 500,000 people are still officially displaced and access to health care is nearly non-existent.

Photo: Haiti 2010 © Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

A mother and child rest in the pediatric ward of MSF’s hospital in the Bicentenaire area of Port-au-Prince. Active in Haiti since 1991, MSF has opened five hospitals, including this one, and fought a widespread cholera epidemic in the country since a massive earthquake struck in January 2010. More than 3,000 staff are providing orthopedic surgery and post-operative treatment to earthquake survivors and emergency obstetric and neonatal care to mothers and children, among other services. The cholera epidemic continues—after a mid-May spike in cases in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in the country, MSF reopened cholera treatment units in several areas to relieve the pressure on existing facilities. Photo: Haiti 2011 © Yann Libessart/MSF

A mother and child rest in the pediatric ward of MSF’s hospital in the Bicentenaire area of Port-au-Prince. Active in Haiti since 1991, MSF has opened five hospitals, including this one, and fought a widespread cholera epidemic in the country since a massive earthquake struck in January 2010. More than 3,000 staff are providing orthopedic surgery and post-operative treatment to earthquake survivors and emergency obstetric and neonatal care to mothers and children, among other services. The cholera epidemic continues—after a mid-May spike in cases in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in the country, MSF reopened cholera treatment units in several areas to relieve the pressure on existing facilities.

Photo: Haiti 2011 © Yann Libessart/MSF

The first few days after the earthquake January, 12, 2010, MSF set up operating theatres under plastic sheeting and in shipping containers to stand up to the emergency in Port-au-Prince. Caesarean sections, amputations or wound disinfections… Each day, MSF teams performed an average of 50 operations. Such a situation was unheard of.

MSF launched the largest emergency aid operation in its history in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, in which it attended more than 358,000 patients, carried out about 16,000 surgeries and assisted the birth of 15,000 babies. In the 12 months after cholera broke out in Haiti in October 2010, MSF treated more than 160,000 cholera patients, or 35 percent of the total cholera cases reported in the country.

The existing health structures were no longer able to care for patients adequately. We found two to three patients per bed, some lying on the ground or on benches, in appalling conditions. Health facilities had reached their limit and were no longer able to cope with the influx of patients.
Dr. Narcisse Wega, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Cameroon. Cholera has now spread to all districts of Cameroon’s larest city, Douala, home to 2.1 million people. See how MSF is responding.

Haiti: The Never-Ending Cholera Epidemic

Over the past year, cholera has affected nearly half a million people in Haiti. More than 6,300 people have died as a result of the disease and the epidemic continues. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) continues to treat patients, raise health awareness, and train public health workers.

Haitian authorities and international aid actors need to do much more to treat and prevent cholera…Even though the international community has pledged huge sums of money to assist Haiti, thousands of Haitians are still getting sick from cholera every week, and some are still dying.

Romain Gitenet, MSF head of mission in Haiti

Read more about how Haitians are still threatened by the inadequate cholera response.

A girl selling food along the Congo River in Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of Congo, listens to an MSF health promoter explain that a cholera epidemic is spreading along the river and has caused outbreaks in many of the towns on its banks. He explained how to avoid getting cholera, the symptoms to watch for, and what to do if you have it. Hear more DRC 2011 © Robin Meldrum/MSF

A girl selling food along the Congo River in Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of Congo, listens to an MSF health promoter explain that a cholera epidemic is spreading along the river and has caused outbreaks in many of the towns on its banks. He explained how to avoid getting cholera, the symptoms to watch for, and what to do if you have it. Hear more

DRC 2011 © Robin Meldrum/MSF

Cholera has no limits.

Romain Gitenet, head of mission for MSF and supervisor of the mobile cholera response team, which registered 10,000 new cholera cases in the lower Aribonite Valley over 10 weeks earlier this summer.

A year after a cholera outbreak, getting to rural communities remains a challenge. Meanwhile, aid organizations are preparing to leave the country.

More from The Miami Herald:
Reaching Haiti’s cholera victims as hard as curing the disease

notsocerebral: Mbandaka, DR Congo (Robin Meldrum, 2011) “The plastic sheeting fence surrounding MSF’s CTC in Mbandaka has slits at regular intervals to slot it being blown down in strong gusts of wind. But these slits let curious passers-by look in to see what goes on inside the CTC. A cholera epidemic has spread more than 1,000km from Kisangani down the Congo river to the outskirts of Kinshasa.” I strongly urge you to check out the MSF photoblog if you haven’t already. Thank you! We crosspost some of the photos here, but you should definitely check out our photo blog for more glimpses of our work and patients.

notsocerebral:

Mbandaka, DR Congo (Robin Meldrum, 2011)

“The plastic sheeting fence surrounding MSF’s CTC in Mbandaka has slits at regular intervals to slot it being blown down in strong gusts of wind. But these slits let curious passers-by look in to see what goes on inside the CTC. A cholera epidemic has spread more than 1,000km from Kisangani down the Congo river to the outskirts of Kinshasa.”

I strongly urge you to check out the MSF photoblog if you haven’t already.

Thank you! We crosspost some of the photos here, but you should definitely check out our photo blog for more glimpses of our work and patients.

Fighting A Cholera Epidemic in the Congo

A cholera epidemic is sweeping down the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Originating in the distant centre of the vast central African country it has now reached the capital, Kinshasa, more than 1,000 miles southwest. People are sick and dying and desperate for help. Robin Meldrum went to the town of Mbandaka, where an MSF emergency team is responding to the crisis.