"135 dead, hundreds ill in Haitian epidemic" by Jacob Kushner, Associated Press | October 22, 2010
ST. MARC, Haiti — An outbreak of severe diarrhea has killed at least 135 people in rural central Haiti and sickened hundreds more who overwhelmed a crowded hospital yesterday seeking treatment. Health workers suspected the disease is cholera, but were awaiting tests.
Hundreds of patients lay on blankets in a parking lot outside St. Nicholas Hospital in the port city of St. Marc with IVs in their arms for rehydration. 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 Caribbean nation’s deadliest outbreak since a January earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 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,’’ said Catherine Huck, deputy country director for the UN 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. 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 bacterial infection spread through contaminated water. It causes severe diarrhea and vomiting that can lead to dehydration and death within hours.
The sick come from across the rural Artibonite region, which suffered little damage in the Jan. 12 quake but has absorbed thousands of refugees from the devastated capital, Port-au-Prince, 45 miles south of St. Marc.
Some patients said they drank water from a public canal, while others said they bought purified water. All complained of symptoms including fever, vomiting, and severe diarrhea.
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Also see: One-Day Wonder: Haitian Hell Hole
How's Haiti?
Hard to believe hell can get worse.
"Emergence of cholera in Haiti raises alarms; Deadly illness begins sweep across country" by Stephen Smith, Globe Staff | October 23, 2010
Patients with cholera received medical attention at St. Nicholas Hospital. The emergence of cholera in Haiti had been feared since the first days after January’s earthquake. (Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press)
Hospitals staffed by doctors and nurses affiliated with Boston-based Partners in Health sit at the epicenter of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that has killed more than 150, sickened as many as 2,000, and begun to sweep across the impoverished countryside.
The bacterial disease, spread through contaminated water, tainted food, and poor hygiene, was discovered earlier this week....
While it’s not unusual for patients to show up at St. Nicholas Hospital in the city of St. Marc stricken with diarrhea, medical workers there grew increasingly alarmed as patients began dying, often swiftly.
“It was a very rapid, dehydrating illness, so we suspected it might be cholera and rapidly started to look for other cases in the community,’’ Dr. Joia Mukherjee, chief medical officer of Partners in Health, said in a telephone press briefing yesterday from Boston.
The more they looked, the more they found in St. Marc — a bustling commercial hub three hours northwest of Port-au-Prince, where merchants line the road and duck into passing cars, peddling fish, fruits, and vegetables.
Among the uncleared rubble, sigh.
The 200-bed hospital there, with the equivalent of just five doctors, sagged under the influx of so many patients all at once, with the ill spilling into the courtyard.
At the same time, the bacteria were on the move across a region known as the Artibonite, with wrenching bouts of diarrhea reported in four other communities and a prison....
Since the January earthquake, when the displaced fled from the tattered capital city to the countryside by the thousands, Haitians have become ever-more transient, an ideal circumstance for the spread of a pernicious germ....
What happened to all the world aid and attention?
By yesterday afternoon, there were reports of cholera outside of the Artibonite, perhaps most alarmingly in Arcahaie, a town along a coastal road between St. Marc and Port-au-Prince.
The emergence of cholera in Haiti, where clean water and sanitation were sorely lacking even before the earthquake, had been feared since the first days after the quake, as hundreds of thousands sought shelter in squalid tent encampments that arose across Port-au-Prince.
“When I first heard there was an outbreak of cholera, I assumed it was where the earthquake happened,’’ said Dr. Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington. “One of the scientifically interesting questions is, where did it come from?’’
Mukherjee said there was no specific event — no flood, no singular contamination — that she was aware of that could explain the fast-moving outbreak, although rains have been steady recently in the Artibonite, where long-planned water and sanitation projects remained stalled for more than a decade. A hurricane in 2008 further compromised water supplies, leaving the region vulnerable to water-borne disease outbreaks.
Okay, the implication is the water supply.
To contain the spread of cholera, crews affiliated with the Haitian government and Partners in Health have embarked on a major education campaign urging people to drink only clean water and to avoid further contaminating water supplies with human waste.
Clean water and soap are being shipped to the Artibonite, and medical workers from global relief agencies are flocking to the region.
Again? How come they didn't do a damn thing this whole time?
The young, the elderly, and those with impaired disease-fighting abilities are at greatest risk from the onset of severe diarrhea, Mukherjee and infectious disease specialists said. The threat is especially acute in Haiti because the disease has not been seen there for decades, meaning its potential victims have no immunity against the germ.
The more I read the more this stinks.
The last major outbreak of cholera in the Western Hemisphere was in the early 1990s, when it appeared in Peru and migrated across Latin America....
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"Doctors say cholera outbreak spreading in Haiti; Concerns raised that disease may reach the capital" by Jacob Kushner, Associated Press | October 24, 2010
Children suffering from cholera symptoms waited Friday to receive serum at a hospital in Haiti. At least 200 people were confirmed dead of the disease as of yesterday, with about 2,400 ill. (Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press)
The look in the child's eyes says it all -- and draws tears from the old man typing.
Was global governmemt's goal ever to save these people, or is something far more sinister at work?
Just getting rid if the usless eaters, right?
ST. MARC, Haiti — An outbreak of cholera has spread outside a rural valley in central Haiti, intensifying worries the disease could reach squalid tarp camps that house hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors in the capital.
By yesterday more than 200 were confirmed dead in the poor Caribbean nation’s worst health crisis since the Jan. 12 quake, and authorities said more than 2,000 were sick.
The cholera outbreak has been centered in the central Artibonite region, but at least five cases were confirmed in Arcahaie, a town closer to the quake-devastated capital, Port-au-Prince. Another four cases were reported in Limbe, a small northern municipality....
Health officials are fearful about the outbreak spreading into the capital, where thousands and thousands of people are living in unsanitary conditions in refugee camps.
“It will be very, very dangerous,’’ said Claude Surena, president of the Haitian Medical Association.
“Port-au-Prince already has more than 2.4 million people, and the way they are living is dangerous enough already.’’
Aid groups and the government were rushing in medical and relief supplies, including 10,000 boxes of water purification chemicals, according to the World Health Organization....
We've seen all this before.
What the hell were you guys doing the last 10 months?
Cholera was not present in Haiti before the earthquake, but officials had warned that conditions were ripe for disease to strike in areas with limited access to clean water.
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Patients were treated yesterday at a hospital in St. Marc, Haiti, where the cholera outbreak that has claimed 250 lives began. (Thony Belizaire/ AFP/ Getty Images)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Health authorities and international aid workers scrambled yesterday to keep a cholera outbreak in Haiti from spreading to the squalid camps in Port-au-Prince, where 1.3 million earthquake survivors live.
The outbreak has already killed 250 people and made more than 3,000 sick. Five cholera patients have been reported in Haiti’s capital, heightening worries that the disease could reach the sprawling tent slums where abysmal hygiene, poor sanitation, and widespread poverty could rapidly spread it.
Government officials said yesterday that all five apparently got cholera outside Port-au-Prince, and they voiced hope that the deadly bacterial disease could be confined to the rural areas where the outbreak originated last week....
If efforts to keep cholera out of the camps fail, “the worst case would be that we have hundreds of thousands of people getting sick at the same time,’’ said Claude Surena, president of the Haiti Medical Association. Cholera can cause vomiting and diarrhea so severe it can kill from dehydration in hours.
Doctors Without Borders issued a statement saying some Port-au-Prince residents were suffering from watery diarrhea and were being treated at facilities in the capital. Cholera infection among the patients had not been confirmed, however, and aid workers stressed that diarrhea has been common in Port-au-Prince since the Jan. 12 earthquake.
Aid workers say the risk is magnified by the extreme poverty faced by people displaced by the earthquake, which killed as many as 300,000 people and destroyed much of the capital city. Haitians living in the camps risk disease by failing to wash their hands, or scooping up standing water to wash fruits and vegetables....
Somehow the implication is that the Haitians brought this on themselves, right?
Aid workers are coaching thousands of impoverished families on how best to avoid cholera. Various aid groups are providing soap and water-purification tablets and educating people in Port-au-Prince’s camps about the importance of washing their hands.
Aid groups also began training more staff about cholera and where to direct people with symptoms. The disease had not been seen in Haiti for decades, and many people don’t know about it.
Members of one grass-roots Haitian organization traveled around Port-au-Prince’s camps booming warnings about cholera from speakers in the bed of a pickup truck.
“Many people have become sick,’’ announced Etant Dupain, in front of the Champs de Mars camp by Haiti’s broken national palace. “If you have a family member that has diarrhea, bring them to the hospital immediately. Have them use separate latrines.’’
Relief workers said additional supplies were being flown in, in anticipation that the number of cases would increase sharply.
In a promising development, aid group Partners in Health said hospital management was improving in the city at the center of the initial outbreak....
I think my corporate, cover-up media is sick.
Some health specialists were hopeful that they will be able to control the outbreak of cholera in impoverished Haiti.
“In a way, it couldn’t have happened at a better moment than now because everyone is on the field — lots of [non-governmental organizations], lots of money. We haven’t had any hurricanes so far this fall but people are here, and people are prepared,’’ said Marc Paquette, Haiti director for the Canadian branch of Medecins du Monde.
I will get to the hurricanes in a minute; however, I don't believe there is ever a good time for this.
I would like to know where all the money went and why the time was wasted?
Cholera is an acute bacterial infection that results in a severe form of diarrhea that quickly dehydrates and causes death unless victims are treated, primarily with plenty of water and antibiotics, at the onset. Medical officials said it is possible that some people suspected of having cholera have diarrhea caused by less dangerous germs.
Officials have prepared for months for waterborne diseases in Haiti, which has long-standing sanitation problems.
This is REALLY STARTING to STINK of a (I hate to say it) CONSPIRACY!
But they were not specifically ready for cholera, which last appeared in Haiti 50 years ago.
There are an estimated 3 million to 5 million cholera cases and 100,000 to 120,000 deaths every year worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Outbreaks have been reported this year in Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, and Zambia.
Then the U.N. has failed, hasn't it?
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"Haiti cholera epidemic said to ease; But specialists warn the threat is far from over" by Jacob Kushner, Associated Press | October 26, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A cholera outbreak showed signs of easing yesterday after killing more than 250 people in a sweep through central Haiti, but specialists warned that the earthquake-devastated country’s first bout with the disease in decades is far from over.
This echoes the Gulf oil spill cover-up, 'er, coverage.
Aid groups were joining the government in a race to purify water and warn people throughout the countryside and the capital, Port-au-Prince, where the Jan. 12 earthquake left more than a million survivors in squalid stick-and-tarp camps that are ripe for the waterborne disease.
“The worst part is over, but you can always have a new spike of cholera,’’ said the Health Ministry director, Gabriel Timothee. He said the situation is beginning to stabilize with only six new deaths reported since Sunday.
Why should we believe any government or the mouthpiece AmeriKan media?
Haiti, which had not suffered a cholera outbreak in at least 50 years, is the latest developing country to be afflicted by the disease that sickens an estimated 3 million to 5 million people a year and kills 100,000.
It is common in regions such as the Indian subcontinent and sub-Saharan Africa — an outbreak in Nigeria this year killed at least 1,500 people, according to the United Nations — but it has been rare in industrialized nations for the past 100 years.
The disease, spread through feces-contaminated drinking water or food, leads to vomiting and watery diarrhea which, if not treated, can kill a person within hours. It is preventable with clean water and sanitation, but both can be hard to find in some parts of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.
Some of the 1.3 million people living in the capital’s tent camps already fear the worst.
“I’m afraid because the water we’re drinking here is not treated properly. Anytime I drink the water it makes my stomach sick,’’ said Joseph Sidsen Guerry, 20, who lives in the small Jeremie camp in central Port-au-Prince....
Global government has failed. If they couldn't fix a willing and needy participant....
“The biggest challenge for us is the amount of misinformation,’’ said Julie Schindall of Oxfam, which trained the host of a radio call-in program to promote good hygiene practices in rural Petit Riviere, near the outbreak’s epicenter in the Artibonite region. “We have to make sure they know what is true and what is not true.’’
And the last place you want to look for truth is an AmeriKan newspaper.
*****************
In an unrelated outbreak, the World Health Organization said yesterday that Pakistan has confirmed 99 cases of cholera in the period from the start of the floods in late July to the end of September.
Amazing how the Pakistan floods merit more of a mention in an article on Haiti, huh?
In Nigeria, more than 1,500 people have died from a cholera outbreak this year, according to international health officials....
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Cholera Crisis in Africa
The California-based International Medical Corps has enlisted Haiti’s Boy Scouts to distribute fliers educating people about proper hygiene, spokeswoman Margaret Aguirre said. Her group also was dispatching mobile teams of doctors and nurses equipped with IV fluids, “cholera cots’’ with a hole for human waste, and disinfectant.
Specialists said the disease is likely to spread eventually to the Dominican Republic, which is on the same island as Haiti.
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And then the crisis began to fade from my newspaper, can you believe it?
Yup, everything is back to normal.
These next articles are what I call Invisible Inks: they appeared on the Globe's website version but were nowhere in my printed paper.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Protesters attacked a cholera treatment center as it was preparing to open in the city of St. Marc yesterday, highlighting the fear surrounding a disease that was almost unknown in Haiti before it began spreading through the countryside, aid workers said.
Some of the roughly 300 students and other protesters said they feared the Doctors Without Borders-Spain clinic would bring more of the disease to their seaside town, which is one of the hardest hit in the week-old epidemic that has killed 284 people and infected 3,769, according to United Nations figures.
Witnesses said the protesters threw rocks and at least one Molotov cocktail. UN peacekeepers from Argentina arrived with riot shields to reinforce police. Warning shots were heard; the UN said its soldiers fired blanks. There were no reports of injuries....
More than 420 new cholera cases were confirmed yesterday, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Twenty-five new deaths were confirmed, bringing the total to 284....
But if you ONLY READ the NEWSPAPER you would be under the impression that the crisis was easing!
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So where could the cholera have come from?
"UN testing base as source of cholera outbreak in Haiti" by Jonathan M . Katz, Associated Press | October 28, 2010
MIREBALAIS, Haiti — UN investigators took samples of foul-smelling waste trickling behind a Nepalese peacekeeping base toward an infected river system yesterday, following persistent accusations that excrement from the newly arrived unit caused the cholera epidemic that has sickened more than 4,000 people in the earthquake-ravaged nation....
Meanwhile the epidemic continued to spread, with cases confirmed in two new departments in Haiti’s north and northeast, said Imogen Wall, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. At least 303 people have died and 4,722 have been hospitalized....
And after my PRINTED PAPER TOLD ME the crisis was EASING!!
Haitians are increasingly turning their attention to its origins: How did a disease which has not been seen in Haiti since the early 20th century suddenly erupt in the countryside?
The mission strongly denies its base was a cause of the infection. Pugliese said civilian engineers collected samples from the base Friday which tested negative for cholera, and the mission’s military force commander ordered the additional tests to confirm. He said no members of the Nepalese battalion have the disease....
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Returning to my newspaper coverage:
"UN troops may have brought cholera; CDC says strain in Haiti matches those in S. Asia" by Jonathan M. Katz, Associated Press | November 4, 2010
A woman waited for her cholera-stricken child to be treated at a hospital in Petite Riviere, Haiti, near the Artibonite River. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)
The looks says it all. What if the boy were your kid?
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Researchers should determine whether United Nations peacekeepers were the source of a deadly outbreak of cholera in Haiti, two public health specialists, including a UN official, said yesterday.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the strain of cholera that has killed at least 442 people the past three weeks matches strains found in South Asia. The CDC, World Health Organization, and United Nations say it is not possible to pinpoint the source and investigating further would distract from efforts to fight the disease.
And now the RED FLAGS START FLYING!!
The New World Order globalists bent on genocide do NOT WANT TO INVESTIGATE here it came from, huh?
Now I'm thinking that the germ was LET LOOSE on PURPOSE -- with this cock-and-bull cover story being put up to explain it.
Then again, the media never lies. Osama bin Laden did 9/11 and Iraq had WMDs.
But leading specialists on cholera and medicine consulted by the Associated Press challenged that position, saying it is both possible and necessary to track the source to prevent future deaths.
Reminds me of the scientists the government was trying to shut up down in the Gulf.
“That sounds like politics to me, not science,’’ Dr. Paul Farmer, a UN deputy special envoy to Haiti and a noted specialist on poverty and medicine, said of the reluctance to delve further into what caused the outbreak. “Knowing where the point source is — or source, or sources — would seem to be a good enterprise in terms of public health.’’
Aren't they the same s***ters pushing global warming?
The suspicion that a Nepalese UN peacekeeping base on a tributary to the infected Artibonite River could have been a source of the infection fueled a protest last week during which hundreds of Haitians denounced the peacekeepers....
Cholera, which had never been documented in Haiti, has killed at least 442 people and hospitalized more than 6,742 with fever, diarrhea, and vomiting since late last month. It is now present in at least half of Haiti’s political regions.
But the crisis is easing -- or so my newspaper reported days ago!
Death occurs when patients go into shock from extreme dehydration. The epidemic has diverted resources needed for the expected strike of a hurricane this week, and could spread further if there is flooding.
Suspicions that the Nepalese base could have been a source of the infection intensified Monday after the CDC revealed the strain in Haiti matches those found in South Asia, including Nepal.
But nothing has been proven conclusively, and the case remains politically charged and diplomatically sensitive.
Why should the SEARCH for TRUTH be impacted by ANY OF THOSE?
And if it is, you certainly can NOT BELIEVE the LYING NEWSPAPER EXPLANATION no matter what!
The United Nations has a 12,000-strong force in Haiti that has provided badly needed security since 2004. But their presence is not universally welcomed, and some Haitian politicians have seized upon the cholera accusations, calling for a full-scale investigation and fomenting demonstrations.
And whatever you do you don't want those last two things if you are a murdering globalist scum.
Related:
"International officials and the Haitian government credit MINUSTAH with improving security in Haiti. But some Haitians see the foreign troops as prone to using reckless force with impunity. When last summer massive crowds attended the Port-Au-Prince funeral of Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a popular priest, U.N. troops were seen on state television opening fire"
"The coup was promoted to advance the process of neoliberal capital accumulation, break the left and the unions, and break Famni Lavalas and the civil society organisations sustaining resistance. For years, UN 'peacekeepers' have slaughtered thousands of Haitians, and the residents have been put through rigged election procedures."
That is peacekeeping?
Ever notice WHEREVER the U.N. GOES things get WORSE?!!
Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the disease was imported to Haiti but that it is not clear by whom or how. She said the epidemic will contain lessons for humanitarian relief work and disaster relief around the world.
Oh, so Haiti is basically a laboratory?
How come you guys never learn the lessons?
“It has to be either peacekeepers or humanitarian relief workers, that’s the bottom line.’’
**********
John Mekalanos, a cholera specialist and chairman of Harvard University’s microbiology department, also cast doubt on UN military tests released this week that showed no sign of cholera.
They sound like the U.S. government that said all the Gulf oil was gone.
The tests were taken from leaking water and an underground waste container at the base a week after the epidemic was noted and processed in the Dominican Republic, UN spokesman Vincenzo Pugliese said.
Mekalanos said that it is difficult to accurately isolate cholera in environmental samples and that false negatives are common.
The Nepalese troops were not tested for cholera before their deployment if they did not have symptoms.
HMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!
Health officials say 75 percent of people infected do not show symptoms and can still pass on the disease for weeks.
A spokesman for the World Health Organization said finding the cause of the outbreak is “not important right now.’’
These the same guys hollering swine flu last year?
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And as if the Haitians needed more being dumped on them:
"Hurricane weakens, but Haiti still threatened" by Associated Press | November 1, 2010
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent — Hurricane Tomas weakened slightly yesterday after tearing off roofs and downing power lines in the eastern Caribbean. Forecasters said the storm could gain force and veer toward earthquake-stunned Haiti, where some 1.3 million people in tents and under tarpaulins are vulnerable to heavy rains and wind....
And who are suffering a cholera epidemic.
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KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent — Tropical Storm Tomas weakened over the Caribbean yesterday, but forecasters warned it was likely to regain power and threaten Haiti’s crowded earthquake refugee camps by the weekend....
In preparation for a possible strike on Haiti, the US Southern Command pulled the USS Iwo Jima out of a humanitarian mission in Suriname for possible disaster relief in Port-au-Prince....
I'm wondering when they will stop at an AmeriKan port to administer humanitarian assistance.
Such are the burdens and costs of empire, America.
Tomas slipped under the threshold for a hurricane Sunday evening and the US National Hurricane Center in Miami predicted more weakening before it begins to strengthen again around midweek.
At that point, Tomas is expected to veer northward in the general direction of Haiti, where some 1.3 million people are living under tarpaulins and in tents....
Remember the aid appeals so long ago and the promises of rebuilding?
Where has all that money gone?
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"A shaken Haiti braces as Tomas nears" by Associated Press | November 4, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Fear and confusion swept over more than 1 million homeless Haitians yesterday after officials advised them to abandon tent camps in Haiti’s rubble-choked capital before Tropical Storm Tomas arrives tomorrow.
To go where?
Few of the earthquake survivors who have spent nearly 10 months alternately baking and soaking under plastic tarps and tents have anywhere to go.
And you hardly read a word in the newspaper all summer.
Painfully slow reconstruction from the quake and the recent commitment of government resources to fight a growing cholera epidemic have left people with few options....
How about NO RECONSTRUCTION!
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Related:
"Tourists evacuated as hurricane makes landfall in Belize" by Associated Press | October 25, 2010
BELIZE CITY — Hurricane Richard slammed into Belize’s Caribbean coast just south of its largest city late yesterday, as authorities evacuated tourists from islands and an estimated 10,000 people took refuge at shelters in the tiny Central American nation.
The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said Richard’s top winds were 90 miles per hour when it made landfall about 20 miles south-southwest of Belize City, whose neighborhoods are full of wooden, tin-roof homes that are very vulnerable to winds....
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Also see: Escaped jaguar blamed in Belize death
