UPDATE | Haiti: Cholera Outbreak Kills 250 | Deadliest Outbreak Since Earthquake Hits Refugees | 2,364 Infected | Photos | Videos

Haiti Cholera Patients Lying on Hospital Floors

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/haiti-cholera-patients-on-hospital-fl...

The Sydney Morning Herald

Haiti cholera patients on hospital floors
Thony Belizaire
October 22, 2010 - 1:44PM

AFP

Some of the victims of Haiti's cholera outbreak are being treated on hospital floors because all the beds are taken, and fever-wracked patients are waiting hours for a doctor to reach them.

Outside Saint Nicolas hospital, an overwhelmed facility at the heart of Haiti's growing public health disaster, hundreds of desperate relatives bring their sick kin to the front door.

Some collapse before they reach the entrance and are stepped over by others clamouring for medical attention.
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With lines of families bringing their young children to sit patiently inside the hospital, the corridors and even the hospital yard is filling up so fast that nurses wearing bright white smocks and surgical masks have to pick their way through piles of victims sprawled out on the floor.

In recent days 135 people have died and 1500 people have been taken ill with the disease, which is being blamed on the cholera-infected Artibonite river, an artery crossing Haiti's rural centre that thousands of people use for much of their daily activities from washing to cooking.

"I'm very weak (because) I lost a lot of weight in the last two days," said Edner Philemon, 22. He said three members of his family died from cholera in a matter of hours.

Cholera is caused by a comma-shaped bacterium called Vibrio cholerae, transmitted through water or food that has typically been contaminated by human fecal matter.

It causes serious diarrhoea and vomiting, leading to dehydration. It is easily treatable by rehydration and antibiotics. But with a short incubation period, it can be fatal if not treated in time.

The patients "respond well to treatment", said Yolanda Surena, a doctor dispatched to the affected region some 100km north of the capital Port-au-Prince.

"But we cannot send them home to avoid spreading the disease," Surena added, calling on international aid organisations to send 500 beds urgently for the patients who keep arriving.

Health officials fearan even greater public health disaster is awaiting the impoverished country if the epidemic spreads south to the teeming tent cities of the capital, still in ruins from the January earthquake that left over a million people homeless.

October is the third wettest month in this tropical country, and poor sanitation in the densely packed camps mean thousands of people without adequate housing or medical facilities risk exposure to infected water.

Local media here is instructing the population to take precautions to fight the outbreak, and Dr Surena reminded local residents that the most basic precautions can save lives.

"You must eat well cooked food, wash as often as possible, drink the treated water," the doctor said as patients received rehydration treatment in stairwells and waiting areas throughout the Saint Nicolas hospital.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/world/americas/22cholera.html?_r=1&scp=1&a...

The New York Times

Cholera Is Feared in Haiti Outbreak
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 21, 2010

ST. MARC, Haiti (AP) — An outbreak of severe diarrhea in rural central Haiti has killed at least 135 people and sickened hundreds more who overwhelmed a crowded hospital on Thursday seeking treatment.

Health workers suspected the cause was cholera, but were awaiting tests.

Hundreds of patients lay on blankets in a parking lot outside a hospital here. As rain began to fall in the afternoon, nurses rushed to carry them inside.

Doctors were testing for cholera, typhoid and other illnesses in the deadliest outbreak of disease since a January earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 people.

Catherine Huck, deputy country director for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that Haiti’s Health Ministry had recorded 135 deaths and more than 1,000 people infected.

“What we know is that people have diarrhea, and they are vomiting, and can go quickly if they are not seen in time,” she added.

The president of the Haitian Medical Association, Dr. Surena Claude, said the cause appeared to be cholera, but that that had not been confirmed.

A version of this article appeared in print on October 22, 2010, on page A11 of the New York edition.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/22/3045898.htm

Haiti Cholera Patients Pile Up On Hospital Floor

Posted 4 hours 48 minutes ago
Cholera epidemic hits Haiti

In recent days, 135 people have died and 1,500 people have been taken ill with the disease. (AFP: Thony Belizaire)

Some of the victims of Haiti's cholera outbreak are being treated on hospital floors because all the beds are taken, and fever-wracked patients are waiting hours for a doctor to reach them.

Outside Saint Nicolas hospital, an overwhelmed facility at the heart of Haiti's growing public health disaster, hundreds of desperate relatives bring their sickened kin to the front door.

Some collapse before they reach the entrance and are stepped over by others clamouring for medical attention.

With lines of families bringing their young children to patiently sit inside the hospital, the corridors and even the hospital yard is filling up so fast that nurses wearing bright white smocks and surgical masks have to pick their way through piles of victims sprawled out on the floor.

In recent days, 135 people have died and 1,500 people have been taken ill with the disease that is being blamed on the cholera-infected Artibonite River, an artery crossing Haiti's rural centre that thousands of people use for much of their daily activities from washing to cooking.

"I'm very weak, [because] I lost a lot of weight in the last two days," Edner Philemon, 22, said.

He said three members of his family died from cholera in a matter of hours.

Cholera is caused by a comma-shaped bacterium called vibrio cholerae, transmitted through water or food that has typically been contaminated by human fecal matter.

It causes serious diarrhoea and vomiting, leading to dehydration. It is easily treatable by rehydration and antibiotics. But with a short incubation period, it can be fatal if not treated in time.

The patients "respond well to treatment," said Yolanda Surena, a doctor dispatched to the affected region some 100 kilometres north of the capital Port-au-Prince.

"But we cannot send them home to avoid spreading the disease," Dr Surena added, calling on international aid organisations to urgently send 500 beds for the patients who keep arriving.

Health officials fear an even greater public health disaster is awaiting the impoverished country if the epidemic spreads south to the teeming tent cities of the capital, still in ruins from the January earthquake that left over a million people homeless.

October is the third wettest month in the tropical country and poor sanitation in the densely packed camps mean thousands of people without adequate housing or medical facilities risk exposure to infected water.

Local media are instructing the population to take precautions to fight the outbreak and Dr Surena reminded residents that the most basic precautions can save lives.

- AFP

http://www.newser.com/story/103537/cholera-kills-over-100-in-haiti.html

Outbreak sickens over 1,000 lightning fast
By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 22, 2010 1:19 AM CDT

(Newser) – A fast-moving outbreak of what officials believe is cholera has killed at least 138 people in central Haiti within 48 hours and infected over a thousand others. The outbreak, the first since January's earthquake, has overwhelmed public health facilities, the BBC reports. The infection, spread through contaminated food and water, causes severe diarrhea and kills quickly if left untreated. Authorities are rushing antibiotics and rehydration supplies to the affected area.

"It's bad. They were just putting people on the side of the road. They look like skeletons," presidential candidate Charles Henri Baker told the Miami Herald after a visit to the region. Baker says he used his campaign truck to transport sick residents, and children died in the back of the truck before they reached the hospital. "I don't even feel like campaigning anymore. It's unbelievable when they tell you the number of people who are sick," he said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/toll-rises-in-haiti-cholera-out...

Toll rises in Haiti cholera outbreak

By Jacob Kushner, AP

Friday, 22 October 2010

The Independent

Children await treatment at a medical facility on October 21, 2010 in St. Marc, northern Haiti

THONY BELIZAIRE/AFP/Getty Images

Children await treatment at a medical facility on October 21, 2010 in St. Marc, northern Haiti

At least 135 people have died in a suspected cholera outbreak, and aid groups are rushing in medicine and other supplies today to combat Haiti's deadliest problem since its devastating earthquake.

The outbreak in the rural Artibonite region, which hosts thousands of quake refugees, appeared to confirm relief groups' fears about sanitation for homeless survivors living in tarp cities and other squalid settlements.

"We have been afraid of this since the earthquake," said Robin Mahfood, president of Food for the Poor, which was preparing to fly in donations of antibiotics, dehydration salts and other supplies.

Many of the sick have converged on St. Nicholas hospital in the seaside city of St. Marc, where hundreds of dehydrated patients lay on blankets in a parking lot with IVs in their arms as they waited for treatment.

Catherine Huck, deputy country director for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the Caribbean nation's health ministry had recorded 135 deaths and more than 1,000 infected people.

"What we know is that people have diarrhea, and they are vomiting, and (they) can go quickly if they are not seen in time," Huck said. She said doctors were still awaiting lab results to pinpoint the disease.

The president of the Haitian Medical Association, Claude Surena, said the cause appeared to be cholera, but added that had not been confirmed by the government.

"The concern is that it could go from one place to another place, and it could affect more people or move from one region to another one," he said.

Cholera is a waterborne bacterial infection spread through contaminated water. It causes severe diarrhea and vomiting that can lead to dehydration and death within hours. Treatment involves administering a salt and sugar-based rehydration serum.

No cholera outbreaks had been reported in Haiti for decades before the earthquake, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Haitian officials, including President Rene Preval, have been pointing to the lack of severe disease outbreaks as a hard-to-see success of the quake response.

With more than a million people left homeless by the disaster, however, experts have warned that disease could strike in the makeshift camps with nowhere to put human waste and limited access to clean water.

At the hospital, some patients including 70-year-old Belismene Jean Baptiste said they got sick after drinking water from a public canal.

"I ran to the bathroom four times last night vomiting," Jean Baptiste said.

The sick come from across the Artibonite Valley, a starkly desolate region of rice fields and deforested mountains. The area did not experience significant damage in the Jan. 12 quake but has absorbed thousands of refugees from the devastated capital 45 miles (70 kilometers) south of St. Marc.

Trucks loaded with medical supplies including rehydration salts were to be sent from Port-au-Prince to the hospital, said Jessica DuPlessis, an OCHA spokeswoman. Doctors at the hospital said they also needed more personnel to handle the flood of patients.

Elyneth Tranckil was among dozens of relatives standing outside the hospital gate as new patients arrived near death.

"Police have blocked the entry to the hospital, so I can't get in to see my wife," Tranckil said.

The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince issued an advisory urging people to drink only bottled or boiled water and eat only food that has been thoroughly cooked.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39817954/ns/health-infectious_diseases/

UPDATE

Haiti cholera toll tops 250, but seen stabilizing
Five ill in Port-au-Prince; fears about possible spread to tent camps linger

msnbc.com news services
updated 10/24/2010 2:08:59 PM ET 2010-10-24T18:08:59

ST. MARC, Haiti — A cholera epidemic in Haiti has killed more than 250 people, the government said on Sunday, but it added the outbreak that has sickened more than 3,000 may be stabilizing with fewer deaths and new cases reported over the last 24 hours.

"We have registered a diminishing in numbers of deaths and of hospitalized people in the most critical areas ... The tendency is that it is stabilizing, without being able to say that we have reached a peak," Gabriel Thimote, director-general of Haiti's Health Department, told a news conference.

The accumulated deaths since the cholera outbreak began around a week ago in the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation stood at 253, while total cases were 3,015, mostly in central rural regions straddling the Artibonite river.

Thimote said that whereas previously the hospital in Saint-Marc in the Artibonite region was recording deaths by dozens, it had registered only one on Saturday.

However, five cases have been reported in Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital, intensifying worries that the contagious disease could spread to the squalid tent camps that house about 1.3 million survivors of the country's Jan. 12 earthquake.

U.N. officials stressed that the five Port-au-Prince cases, the first confirmed in the capital since the epidemic started, were people who had become infected in the main outbreak zone of Artibonite north of Port-au-Prince and had subsequently traveled to the city where they fell sick.

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"They were very quickly diagnosed and isolated," U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Imogen Wall told Reuters, citing information from Haitian health authorities. "This is not a new location of infection."

Still, prevention measures and surveillance were being increased in Port-au-Prince, where those in tent cities are highly vulnerable to a virulent diarrhea disease like cholera. U.N. peacekeepers were erecting cholera treatment centers — structures large enough to treat 150 cases each — in the main outbreak region of Artibonite, in the overcrowded capital Port-au-Prince and in the Center province.

Number falling ill rises
With more than 3,000 cholera cases reported, Haitian and international medical teams are working desperately to isolate and contain the epidemic in the Artibonite and Central Plateau regions, north of the rubble-strewn capital.

"We are planning for the worst-case scenario here ... we have to be ready for this," Wall said. The 12,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) is helping to put up the cholera treatment centers.

It is the worst medical emergency to strike the poor, disaster-prone Caribbean nation since the earthquake killed up to 300,000 people and is also the first cholera epidemic in Haiti in a century.

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Cholera, transmitted by contaminated water and food, can kill in hours if left untreated, through dehydration. But it can be treated easily with oral rehydration salts or just a simple mix of water, sugar and salt. TV and radio ads in Creole recommended that treatment to the population.

'No safety cordon'
Daniel Rouzier, chairman of the Board of Trustees of U.S.-based charity Food for the Poor, earlier told Reuters he had learned of the five cholera cases at private clinics in the capital. "It was not originally in the geographical area of the camps. Now it is," he said.

Rouzier, whose charity has sent water purification units to the cholera-infected central zones, faulted the Haitian government and its aid partners for not moving quickly and effectively enough to contain and isolate the epidemic.

"Right now, it's been over 72 hours. There is no safety cordon," he said. "If the sick had the proper healthcare where they were, they wouldn't have come to this chaotic city."

Aid workers in the town of Saint-Marc, in the heart of the Artibonite outbreak zone, have reported the main local hospital overflowing with patients, many lying outside in the compound hooked up to intravenous drips.

Haiti is due to hold presidential and legislative elections on Nov. 28 but it is not clear whether the epidemic could threaten the organization of the vote.

In the crowded camps that fill squares, streets, parks and even a golf course in Port-au-Prince, fears of contracting the disease are running high.

"All we can do is pray to God because if we catch this disease in these camps, it will be a real disaster," said Helen Numa, 35. "You can see for yourself how people are living here, packed in like sardines."

Haitian Health Minister Alex Larsen has urged people to wash their hands with soap, not eat raw vegetables, boil all food and drinking water and avoid bathing in and drinking from rivers. The Artibonite River, which irrigates all of central Haiti, is believed to be contaminated.

But many in the capital's camps said they did not have money to buy soap and chlorine to apply hygiene measures.

"We don't have anything, not even one dollar, because we don't have jobs," said Marjorie Lebrun, 45. "I'm afraid if I and my five children get sick, we could die."

Wall said the relief effort in Haiti had enough antibiotics to treat 100,000 cases of cholera and intravenous fluids to treat 30,000. But those would need replenishing.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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A patient is helped outside St. Nicolas Hospital in St. Marc, north of Port-au-Prince.