Cholera, other punishment in Haiti.

[Louis]

Haiti's cholera toll has risen above 900, including dozens of deaths in the teeming capital, as the epidemic showed no sign of abating just two weeks ahead of presidential elections.

Health Ministry officials reported Sunday more than 120 new deaths since the previous toll, as authorities and international aid agencies struggled to contain the latest crisis afflicting the desperately poor Caribbean nation.

Nearly one month after cholera took hold, the confirmed fatalities rose to 917, up from Friday's 796 recorded deaths.

The recent increase in fatalities has been steady and not a spike, but it nonetheless highlights the difficulties of tamping down an outbreak in a country desperate for better infrastructure and health services.

Of Haiti's 10 provinces, six now have been touched by the cholera epidemic according to the health ministry, which said 14,642 people so far had been treated in hospital, about 2,300 more than on Friday.

At least 27 of the deaths were recorded in the teeming capital Port-au-Prince, including its largest slum Cite Soleil and its suburbs.

A cataclysmic earthquake flattened much of the capital in January, leaving more than a quarter people dead and an estimated 1.3 million of Haiti's 10 million population displaced.

 

[PoorOldSpike]

As usual in backward countries, diseases including cholera are easily preventable and treatable if only they used simple commonsense.
The germ itself isn't too dangerous, it kills by stopping the gut absorbing water which goes straight through as diarrhea, and the person dies of thirst and fever.

From the net-

"Drink only boiled water or water treated with chlorine or iodine, or bottled beverages with no ice.
Eat only foods that have been thoroughly cooked and are still hot, or fruit that you have peeled yourself.
Avoid undercooked or raw fish or shellfish, including ceviche.
Make sure all vegetables are cooked -- avoid salads.
Avoid foods and beverages from street vendors.
A simple rule of thumb is
"Boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it. "

Cholera can be simply and successfully treated by immediate replacement of the fluid and salts lost through diarrhea. Patients can be treated with oral rehydration solution, a prepackaged mixture of sugar and salts to be mixed with water and drunk in large amounts. Severe cases also require intravenous fluid replacement.
With prompt rehydration, fewer than 1% of cholera patients die.
Antibiotics shorten the course and diminish the severity of the illness, but they are not as important as rehydration"

http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/p0000002/p0000002.asp#head001000000000000

 

[Bootie]

Nasty... I hadnt heard about this on the news.

 

[Wigam]

Its sad, it never ends, earthquake and then disease.

 

[Louis]

Adonia Bathelemyse watches as a hospital worker dresses the body of her mother Serette Pierre, who died of cholera recently October 29, 2010 in at a hospital in St. Marc, Haiti. Pierre died the same day she contracted cholera.

Every day, by order of the Ministry of Health, cholera victims should be buried in mass graves, anonymous, no crosses or flowers to bring life to death.

On 17 November, a short resolution of the ministry said: "The dead of cholera and acute diarrhea are admitted to the hospital morgue during the period of the epidemic. The bodies set out in the streets, no signs of violent death, there will be, health care and allowed into the morgue. "