Urgent action needed fight cholera in Haiti: aid group

June 15, 2012 in Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Global and local health authorities are not doing enough to fight a cholera outbreak that continues to claim lives in Haiti, Doctors Without Borders said Thursday.

"We are worried about the lack of support from the international community and the lack of action from health authorities in Haiti," Thierry Goffeau, head of the group's Haiti operations, told AFP.

Since the start of the epidemic in October 2010, 7,500 people have died from the disease that is spread through . This year alone, it has claimed at least 40 lives in the impoverished Caribbean nation that shares the Hispaniola island with the far wealthier Dominican Republic.

Doctors Without Borders has treated 9,800 cholera patients in special centers since early 2012, including 72 percent of cases in and around the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

But the group stresses that it has no intention to replace health authorities and is there to support them.

"We urge the international community and the to strengthen their support," Goffeau said.

(c) 2012 AFP

not rated yet  

Rank not rated yet
Related Stories
Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

Little evidence for prediction rules for low back pain

(HealthDay)—Few randomized clinical trials have been done to assess clinical prediction rules for patients with lower back pain, and the trials that have been done are of low quality and do not provide ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes created 11 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

New malaria test kit gives a boost to elimination efforts worldwide

A new, highly sensitive blood test that quickly detects even the lowest levels of malaria parasites in the body could make a dramatic difference in efforts to tackle the disease in the UK and across the world, according to ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes created 15 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

WHO says single yellow fever shot is enough

(AP)—The World Health Organization says a yellow fever booster vaccination given 10 years after the initial shot isn't necessary.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes created 16 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

23 dead in initiation rites in South Africa

(AP)—Twenty-three youths have died in the past nine days at initiation ceremonies that include circumcisions and survival tests, South African police said Friday.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes created 16 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

Expert questions US public health agency advice on influenza vaccines

The United States government public health agency, the CDC, pledges "To base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data, openly and objectively derived." But Peter Doshi, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes created May 16, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0


AIDS science at 30: 'Cure' now part of lexicon

Big names in medicine are set to give an upbeat assessment of the war on AIDS on Tuesday, 30 years after French researchers identified the virus that causes the disease.

For combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, 'fear circuitry' in the brain never rests

Chronic trauma can inflict lasting damage to brain regions associated with fear and anxiety. Previous imaging studies of people with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, have shown that these brain regions can over-or ...

Flesh-eating disease victim gets prosthetic hands

(AP)—A woman who lost both hands, her left leg and right foot after contracting a flesh-eating disease has been fitted with prosthetic hands.

Temporal processing in the olfactory system

The neural machinery underlying our olfactory sense continues to be an enigma for neuroscience. A recent review in Neuron seeks to expand traditional ideas about how neurons in the olfactory bulb might encode information about ...

Melon focus headband turns to Kickstarter for rollout plans

(Medical Xpress)—What if the quality of your work depends more on your focus on the piano keys or canvas or laptop than your musical or painting or computing skills? If target users can be convinced, they ...

Now we know why old scizophrenia medicine works on antibiotics-resistant bacteria

In 2008 researchers from the University of Southern Denmark showed that the drug thioridazine, which has previously been used to treat schizophrenia, is also a powerful weapon against antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as ...