Haiti: after the hurricane Matthew, the threat of cholera

A week after the passage of the Matthew hurricane in Haiti, the country counts its dead. At least 1,000 people have died and the toll could be even heavier with the threat of cholera. 

According to a statement from Reuters conducted with local officials, at least 1,000 people may have been killed in the hurricane Matthew happened in Haiti last week. A death toll that is expected to rise again.Haiti, devastated by an earthquake in 2010 that killed more than 230 000 deaths, had experienced a serious health crisis because of cholera. Given the lack of drinking water and infrastructure destroyed, the authorities fear a resurgence of the epidemic. A Hi-Port, a city that was devastated in the most affected southern peninsula, fears are vivid. Its unique hospital Sunday recorded its first death from cholera, an unspecified age man.Nine other patients are being treated for this disease that is spread by contaminated water.

According to experts, cholera was introduced to Haiti by Nepalese peacekeepers from MINUSTAH, the local UN mission supposed to stabilize the nation once known as "the Pearl of the Antilles". Mid-August, almost six years after the beginning of the epidemic, the United Nations first acknowledged having a "moral responsibility" for the victims of cholera in Haiti and their families, announced that it would grant them "material support" direct. Since October 2010, cholera has killed nearly 10,000 people in Haiti and, with still more than 500 cases each week, the country faces the worst epidemic in recent history globally.

A "mortal danger"

This disease poses a "mortal danger" to the city and its surroundings, assures Dr. Stevenson Desravines, director of the Port-Hi hospital, lamenting lack the material and human resources necessary to deal with the crisis. "Since the hurricane, we receive hundreds of patients every day, 85% have injuries from the storm," he said Often these fractures or other injuries caused by falling trees or roofs . The institution headed by Dr. Desravines employs 55 people, a third of Cubans sent by Havana under a previous cooperation agreement.

Entire regions in Haiti were still cut Sunday morning the rest of the country nearly a week after the arrival of the hurricane, but the scale of humanitarian needs already apparent. "Out of a population of 1.3 million people in the South, with a poverty rate of 60 to 70%, we are not far from a million people who need humanitarian emergency "he told AFP Mourad Wahba, UN humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti. 

France plans to transport two had two water purification stations, 60 experts from civil security, medical kits against cholera and humanitarian first-aid equipment. Two helicopters are already on site to participate in reconnaissance and rescue equipment transport missions. In the poorest countries in the Caribbean, the NGOs for years were now assessing the needs of the most affected areas. 

Very active in Haiti particularly in the fight against the cholera epidemic, MSF has deployed 26 people across the country to better determine how and where to work.