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Towards the elimination of cholera in Haiti

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Favored by poor access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene, disease transmission has persisted in epidemic waves © Unsplash

In 2013, a medical team from the AP-HP, Sorbonne University, Inserm, the European Hospital of Marseille, the IRD, Aix-Marseille University (SESSTIM) and the AP- HM proposed to the Haitian government and to Unicef ​​a coordinated strategy to fight against cholera, aimed at breaking the chains of transmission. 

This strategy and its results, which show the apparent cessation of cholera transmission in Haiti since 2019, have just been the subject of a publication in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Unfortunately imported into Haiti in 2010 during a movement of troops from Asia, cholera caused in this Caribbean country one of the most violent epidemics of recent decades. Favored by poor access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, the transmission of the disease has persisted in epidemic waves to such an extent that the elimination of cholera in the country has been considered impossible by many. .

In 2013, a medical team from the AP-HP, Sorbonne University, Inserm, the European Hospital of Marseille, the IRD, Aix-Marseille University (SESSTIM) and the AP- HM proposed to the Haitian government and to Unicef ​​a coordinated strategy to fight against cholera, aimed at breaking the chains of transmission.

Mobile rapid response teams have thus carried out more than 50,000 interventions throughout the country in order to raise awareness, distribute water and hygiene treatment kits, and often “minute” antibiotic prophylaxis to contact subjects of patients received in the hospital. health centers.

In collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Health, this medical team has just shown, in an article entitled ”  Towards cholera elimination in Haiti  ” that there is no longer the slightest sign of activity of the epidemic since February 2019 despite intense microbiological research.

These dramatic results suggest that case area targeted interventions led by rapid response teams have played a key role. They also question the theory that the bacteria responsible for the disease would persist in the country’s aquatic environments, preventing its elimination.

Medias
Sources

Toward Cholera Elimination, Haiti. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2021.

Stanislas Rebaudet, Patrick Dély, Jacques Boncy, Jean Hugues Henrys, and Renaud Piarroux

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