Disease dilemmas - case studies - cholera in Haiti

1c on the spec

Which country has experienced a natural hazard + which disease has this created/facilitated?

Haiti
Cholera

Haiti’s location

Shares an island with the Dominican Republic
Is in the Caribbean
Is on the edge of the Caribbean and Atlantic Plates

What is the capital of Haiti + what was its population in 2010?

Port-au-Prince
2.1 million

What percentage of people living in Port-au-Prince lived in the slums in 2010?

86%

What was the hazard and when did it occur?
What was its magnitude + how far was it away from the capital

Was an earthquake + it hit Haiti at 4:53pm on the 12th January 2010
Had a magnitude of 7.0Mw and its epicentre was 15km southwest of the capital

How many people were killed etc?

220,000 people were killed
300,000 people were injured
1.3 million people were made homeless

How did this earthquake cause cholera to arrive?

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and so hasn’t got the resources for earthquake recovery → requires international aid
-Nepalese UN peacekeepers brought cholera across to Haiti from Nepal, and then sewage from their base contaminated the whole of the Artibonite river downstream

What are the environmental factors that affected the spread of disease?

Climate: tropical area, so can get tropical storms
→ Hurricane Tomas November 2010 caused rapid flooding, which led to further spreading of infected water
Climate: gets a lot of rain (137cm a year)
→ can carry cholera further as it is a water-borne disease
Relief: very steep slopes in Port-au-Prince
→ led to difficulties with ground shaking causing buildings to collapse during earthquake, which meant more people were made homeless → faster spread of disease
Food: Haiti grows a lot of rice in paddy fields → paddy fields grow rice by flooding the field with water → potenital to infect a major food supply

What are the human factors that affected the spread of disease?

High population density along the Artibonite river (where the first cases were) → lots of people living close together → easier for cholera to spread as living conditions are cramped
→ also, lots of people relying on the river for water → cholera can spread through water to new areas quickly
Low sanitation pre-earthquake: only 69% of Haiti’s population had access to a water source free from contamination, low awareness/education of importance of sanitation techniques
Immunisation programmes: cholera hadn’t been in Haiti for 100 years before this → low levels of immunity in the population → very high risk of infection

What was the population of Haiti in 2010?

9.8 million

What are the short-term impacts of the disease on the resident population of Haiti?

Food: farmers refused to go to the paddy fields due to fear of infection → less food available to purchase,, meat prices tripled as people refused to eat fish from contaminated waters
Government measures: treating people with oral rehydration solutions, educating the population about food hygiene + hand washing + adding chlorine to drinking water, vaccinated the population in at-risk areas

What are the long-term impacts of the disease on the resident population of Haiti?

-The continued cholera epidemic has left the population vulnerable → Hurricane Sandy in 2013 caused cholera cases to triple overnight
-Due to funding shortages in 2016, the number of NGO teams in Haiti was reduced to 30 → only 60% of reported cases are able to be responded to

How many cases + deaths had there been of cholera by June 2013?

658,000 reported cases
8,111 deaths

What are the strategies used to minimise the impacts and spread of the disease?

Education: British Red Cross raised awareness among local people on how to avoid infection
Vaccinations: by the end of 2017, 750,000 should have been vaccinated
Creation of safe drinking water facilities: -due to a general lack of access to clean water, people were forced to use rivers (eg Artibonite river) → could cause cholera to spread quickly + easily
-The British Red Cross delivered clean drinking water to up to 300,000 people living in camps in Port-au-Prince between 2010 and 2012
-UNICEF has been promotion a National Sanitation campaign, focussing on rural water and sanitation → has raised over $20 million so far