Picture from msnbc.com
As you can imagine, the sanitary conditions of the slums and campaments make the cholera spread so easily.
This issue is part of urbanism, yesterday I was reading if a planner- urban designer designs with the possibilities of plagues in mind, probably the cities would be different.
Here, some excerpts from msnbc.com:
An outbreak of cholera has spread from a rural valley in central Haiti to the nation's capital, intensifying worries the disease would spread in squalid tarp camps that house hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors.
The death toll from the epidemic topped 200 Saturday and fears of it propagating in the crowded, earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince increased after five cases were detected in the city.
(....)prevention measures and surveillance were being increased in Port-au-Prince, with its squalid sprawling slums and about 1.3 million survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake packed into tent and tarpaulin camps. All are highly vulnerable to a virulent diarrhea disease like cholera.
Health officials are fearful about the outbreak spreading into the capital, where thousands and thousands of people are living in unsanitary conditions in refugee camps.
"It will be very, very dangerous," said Claude Surena, president of the Haitian Medical Association. "Port-au-Prince already has more than 2.4 million people, and the way they are living is dangerous enough already."
With more than 2,600 cholera cases reported and experts predicting the numbers will rise, Haitian and international medical teams are working desperately to isolate and contain the epidemic in the Artibonite and Central Plateau regions, north of the rubble-strewn capital.
It is the worst medical emergency to strike the poor, disaster-prone Caribbean nation since the earthquake killed up to 300,000 people and is also the first cholera epidemic in Haiti in a century.
The aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. Picture from affordablehousinginstitute.org
Keep on reading:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39817954/ns/health-infectious_diseases
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