After the passing of hurricane Thomas, which left 21 dead and 9 unaccounted for and also destroyed thousands of houses and left more than 5,000 damaged, the country is more at risk then ever for a continued cholera outbreak, according to several specialists who have said that further spread is imminent. According to official information, until today, Wednesday, November 11, cholera has cost the lives of 643 people and hospitalized more than 10,000. Today alone, 46 have died in the department of Aritbonite where the first case of cholera was discovered.

It should be noted that the epidemic is already present in the Oeste department with 75 confirmed cases and another 100 suspected according to officials. Port-au-Prince, home to countless numbers of encampments, each of which houses up to seven people living in extremely inhumane health conditions, is especially at risk. There is a serious lack of potable drinking water and there is no real sanitation system to avoid the further spread of the cholera outbreak. It is entirely possible that the current situation could become worse than what is already occurring in the department of Aritbonite.

In an effort to improve the living conditions of those most vulnerable, MOSCTHA-HAITI, has been on the forefront of the campaign to help curb the epidemic in 10 encampments in the capital, the 3 in Leogane, the 4 in Grand Goaves, the 3 in Petit-Goaves, and Lester in the department of Artibonite. We have been distributing educational materials, such as: flyers, brochures, flipcharts to be used by local health promoters to capacitate the public, and Pur water tablets do purify drinking water. We have been educating illiterate citizens with physical teaching methods based on the information contained in the flyers and brochures. We have also been capacitating local school children so that they can later teach their family members how to prevent cholera.

Moreover, since yesterday classes have been suspended in Gonaïves, which is a province within the department of the Aritbonite, for fear that the children will be infected by the epidemic. It is not known how long classes will be suspended. In Port-au-Prince, there is already a high level of fear on the same issue, and many parents are thinking of not sending their children to school to receive their daily free meal.

In addition to the information that we are delivering to the population in the encampments and local communities, we are also preparing inter-institutional workshops with the hope of capacitating promoters from other institutions that are working in localities where we have no presence. This will allow us to educate more people on how to protect themselves against cholera in order to prevent the disease from spreading.