Cholera in Haiti

• January 2010 - Haiti, on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, was hit by a powerful magnitude 7 earthquake.
• The quake caused a natural disaster: so devastating that the death toll is disputed, with estimates ranging from 30,000 to 300,000.
• One of the poorest countries in the world, where 60% of the population survives on less than US$2.5/day.
• Following the quake, hundreds of thousands of homeless people were housed in makeshift camps.
• In the capital, Port-au-Prince, where prior to the quake 86% of the inhabitants lived in slums, half the population had no access to toilets.
• A cholera outbreak began on 10 October 2010, the disease was introduced by Nepalese soldiers flown in as part of the international effort to cope with the disaster.
• Between the initial outbreak and November 2014, nearly 720,000 cases of cholera were recorded, with 8700 deaths
• The British Red Cross was one of several NGOs such as Oxfam and Red Crescent working in the disaster area. It targeted the cholera outbreak with its own response programme (2010– 12).
• British Red Cross response programme included:

  > delivering clean drinking water to 300,000 people living in camps in Port-au-Prince

  > a massive hygiene programme, building 1300 latrines serving 250,000 people

  > providing medical supplies to the main hospital in Saint Marc in the affected area

  > treating 18,700 cases of cholera in treatment units in La Piste camp in Port-au-Prince and in Port-a-Piment camp in southwest Haiti

  > raising awareness among local people on how to avoid infection and of the characteristic symptoms of cholera.
• Ten years after the Haiti earthquake, the actions/inactions of the many NGOs involved have been widely criticised.
• By the time that cholera arrived in Haiti in mid October there were about 12,000 non-governmental organisations but there was no effective government at all.
• With so many aid agencies on the ground, it is surprising that so many Haitians died of cholera in the first few months, a disease that is easily treated.
• Ten days after the outbreak hit Port-au-Prince, teams from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) realised the inhabitants of the largest temporary camp, the Cité Soleil, still had no access to chlorinated drinking water, even though aid agencies under the UN water-and-sanitation cluster had accepted funds to ensure this.
• Six months after the outbreak there was just one operational waste management site in Port-au-Prince, a city of three million people.
• By late December, MSF and a brigade of Cuban doctors had treated more than 75,000 cholera cases.
• Some critics observed that few other agencies were implementing critical cholera control measures, such as chlorinated water distribution and waste management.
• Very little was done to improve sanitation across the country, allowing cholera to spread at a very rapid rate.