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 The cholera campaign, launched on Tuesday in two southern areas
hammered by the storm, is aiming to be the world's largest,
targeting 820,000 people, said Ernsly Jackson, an immunization
specialist for UNICEF Haiti.
Haiti has battled a cholera outbreak that has sickened more than
800,000 people and killed about 9,000 since 2010, when the bacteria
was imported into the country by a contingent of United Nations
peacekeepers.
Although it had proved stubborn to eradicate, cases had declined
sharply from a peak in 2010-11.
But Hurricane Matthew struck the island in early October, killing up
to 1,000 people, leaving about 1.4 million in need of humanitarian
assistance and damaging many health facilities. The storm largely
destroyed much of the southwestern region's already meager water and
sanitation infrastructure, leaving it ripe for a cholera outbreak,
experts say.
Clifford Gauthier, the South department's head of the Ministry of
Health, said there had been 1,200 suspected cholera cases since the
hurricane hit, a sharp increase since the region had previously had
fewer cases than other areas of the country. In total, the U.N.
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says there have
been 3,500 suspected cholera cases since the hurricane.
In the Immaculate Conception Hospital of the port town of Les Cayes,
19 people suspected of having cholera were hooked up to IVs and lay
on hospital bedframes.
Marie Wilnine Gaetan, the head nurse of a rapid-response team, said
that the region had not seen so many cases since the disease was
first spotted in Haiti.
SINGLE DOSES
The campaign will mark the first time that so many people will be
given only one dose of the cholera vaccine. Normally, the vaccine is
given in two doses.
A previous initiative conducted by Doctors Without Borders in South
Sudan found that a single dose of the cholera vaccine proved to be
extremely effective at boosting immunity, according to a study
published in medical journal The Lancet in November.
"This justifies the approach of using a single dose to achieve wider
coverage, given the fact that there's not enough of the vaccine to
give to everyone," said Alan Hinman, a member of the Global Task
Force on Cholera Prevention, who was not involved with the study.
The two-dose vaccine lasts for two years, according to the United
Kingdom's National Health Service, but it is not known exactly how
long the single dose lasts.
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Despite officials' enthusiasm, some residents were angry that help
had taken a month to arrive.
"Many people died in the South department because of cholera,
especially people who do not have access to a health center in their
community," said Laurient Seebien, a resident of Les Cayes. "Maybe
if the government had come quickly with those drugs, it would have
saved more lives."
Officials at the campaign launch were careful to stress the vaccine
was not intended to be the only tool to fight cholera in the region.
"The eradication of cholera must include the strengthening of
sanitary infrastructures and the population must have access to safe
water," said Daphnee Benoit Delsoin, the Minister of Health. "That
is to say, it is a very long struggle."
But rapid-response team nurse Gaetan said that the water and
sanitation authority's repairs appeared to be slow-going. "It's true
that DINEPA has started, but I don't know if their means are
limited," she said, using the authority's French acronym.
A DINEPA spokesman did not respond to multiple calls.
Donor financing for longer-term improvements to the water and
sanitation system in the cash-strapped country had proved slow to
materialize, U.N. officials said.
"There have been promises but there has been little funding," said
Francois Bellet, a UNICEF specialist in water and sanitation.
(Additional reporting by Robenson Sanon, editing by G Crosse)
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