A Red Alert has been issued in several municipalities in Haiti after a surge of cholera cases have been reported, according to a La Estrella report (computer translated).
The outbreak, reported in the Southeast, has seen 268 cholera cases in the past week in the following cities: Gonaives, Saint-Marc, Saint-Michel de l’Attalaye, Lascahobas, Port au Prince, Tabarre and Marigot.
The report notes of at least one individual who was stricken with cholera and refused to seek medical treatment, instead seeking the services of a healer.
According to the authorities of that country were a total of 185 cholera deaths from January to September this year, including 22,511 people affected by the disease.
More than half of the rural population has no access to safe water and only 24 percent of Haitians have access to health facilities, according to reports from the Haitian government.
Since the beginning of the epidemic in Oct. 2010 through Aug. 2015, there were 745,401 cholera cases, of which 426,856 were hospitalized (57% cumulative hospitalization rate), and 8,965 deaths, with a national cumulative case fatality rate of 1.2%, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
Haiti, which was cholera free for a century, is believed to have had the disease reintroduced by Nepalese soldiers of the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH).
Robert Herriman is a microbiologist and the Editor-in-Chief of Outbreak News Today and the Executive Editor of The Global Dispatch
Follow @bactiman63
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