(task) Haiti: Cholera cases double from previous year

Haiti MPHISE

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cholera

> http://www.sentinel.ht/lifestyles/articles/mind-a-body/5847-cholera-cases-double-from-previous-year <http://www.sentinel.ht/lifestyles/articles/mind-a-body/5847-cholera-cases-double-from-previous-year>
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> Haiti: Cholera cases double from previous year
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> A father looks over his young girl as she receives an IV at a Red Cross [file]
> PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (sentinel.ht) - Experts say Cholera will continue to kill and infect citizens as long as they lack access to clean water and sanitation. This information comes as suspected cases and deaths have doubled in January and February compared to the year prior and twenty of the nation's communes are on red alert.
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> The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reports that during the first two months of this year, cholera cases totaled 7,225, including 86 deaths - higher than recorded during the same period in 2012 and 2014. The resurgence of the disease began in October of last year and has continued on.
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> In the communes on red alert, the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) says 440 cases have already been recorded for the 10th epidemiological week, March 3-9 2015. In certain critical communes, the numbers are: in Port-au-Prince, 65 cases, St Marc, 60 , Cabaret, 47 and in Tabarre, 40 cases.
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> "We cannot be complacent. We can't take our eyes off the ball," PAHO deputy director Isabella Danel told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview. "Cholera comes and goes... This will not go away until the real problem of water and sanitation is solved. That will require a scale-up of financing and capacity."
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> Cholera is a water-borne disease caught by drinking and using contaminated water. It has killed nearly 9,000 Haitians and infected 732,000 since it broke out in the country in October 2010 from a United Nations peacekeeping base where Nepalese soldiers had been stationed.