PORT-AU-PRINCE — When humanitarian officials
in Haiti try to describe their concerns over a new, fast-spreading cholera
epidemic, they struggle to find words strong enough: “alarming”, “chaotic”,
even “a catastrophe”.
اضافة اعلان
A sizable part of the island’s population has been
isolated — and unable to access health care — either by serious fuel shortages
or by the brutal armed gangs that control vast areas.
And without
health care, cholera patients, who
suffer acute diarrhea, can die of dehydration in just hours.
“It’s a
catastrophe. We’re overwhelmed,” Doctor Jean William Pape told AFP. His NGO,
called Gheskio, operates two of the country’s 15 cholera treatment
centers.
In one of them, in the capital of Port-au-Prince,
“we have 80 beds, and they’re all occupied,” he said. “Due to the fuel
shortage, people in the slums have told me there have been several deaths in
their areas, because it wasn’t possible to transport the sick people.”
An armed gang has for weeks been blockading a key
fuel terminal at Varreux, north of the capital, aggravating the country’s
paralysis.
UN peacekeepers introduced cholera to Haiti in 2010,
ultimately resulting in thousands of deaths.
But, until the latest outbreak, no case of the
disease had been reported in Haiti since 2019.
As of Wednesday, 33 cholera deaths and 960 suspected
cases have been logged by the health ministry.
And that number could seriously understate the
problem, according to Bruno Maes, the
UNICEF representative in Haiti.
The situation is all the more frustrating, experts
say, given that even serious cholera cases are easily treatable with a few days
of rest and rehydration, and that there is a cholera vaccine.
That vaccine, however, is only effective for around
five years, and the last big targeted vaccination campaign in Haiti was in
2017.
Children
particularly vulnerable
Roughly half of all cases
here have involved children younger than 14, who are particularly vulnerable
when their immune systems are weakened by poor nutrition due to poverty.
“Many of them are very badly nourished,” said Pape,
the doctor, adding it was difficult to find their veins to administer solutions
intravenously.
The UN estimates that 4.7 million Haitians, nearly
half the country’s population, suffer from acute food insecurity.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) operates four centers
with a total of 250 beds and some 20 oral-rehydration clinics, deputy mission
chief Moha Zemrag told AFP.
He said a priority is securing access to potable
water in gang-controlled areas like the Brooklyn neighborhood in the capital’s
Cite Soleil commune, which has had no fresh water for three months.
Cholera is caused by the ingestion of water or food
contaminated with a bacteria called vibrio cholerae.
The high risk of kidnapping by the gangs has
prevented aid groups from entering these areas to disinfect homes and buildings
with chlorine.
While MSF has established a system of shuttles to
safely bring its personnel to treatment centers, fuel shortages could make this
impossible “in a few weeks,” Zemrag said.
Concern is also growing for rural dwellers, who,
without access to fuel, may have to walk days for help. Early cases have been
detected in the southern region of Nippes and in Artibonite to the north.
Armed groups now blockade highways leading both to
the north and south, Maes said.
“Port-au-Prince is literally surrounded, strangled,”
he said.
UNICEF’s offices have been pillaged, and shipments
of medication have been blocked at the port.
Humanitarian corridors
The return of cholera has revived nightmarish memories of the epidemic
introduced by blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers in 2010, after a major earthquake
ravaged the country. The disease claimed more than 10,000 lives from then until
2019.
But conditions today are different, said Sylvain
Aldighieri, deputy director of public health emergencies with the Pan American
Health Organization.
“For now, we’re not seeing an explosion (in cases)
as we observed during the first months” of 2010, he said.
He said the authorities have “10 years’ experience
with cholera” and the key now is to “reactivate the mechanisms” that worked
before.
Doing so, however, presents challenges.
The UN on Friday imposed sanctions, including an
arms embargo, on several gangs. But it remains divided on whether to send a new
international force to the country.
Such a force, said Aldighieri, might be able to
establish “humanitarian corridors for difficult zones,” and help free supplies
now blocked in ports.
At the moment, he added, airplanes carrying
additional supplies are expected in the coming days.
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