Just a short note to say hi and thank you to all those in Medicine Hat and area that came and contributed to our fundraiser..... thank you to our friends in Winkler and area also with their fundraising banquet... also to High River Full Gospel Church with your love offering for the children of Haiti.... thank you so much.. your donations are making a huge difference..
Just a short update on something called "Champion of Change" ... our organization was nominated along with over 2000 other names in Canada.. it was announced on Monday that we are one of the top 50 chosen by a panel of judges.. they will announce on Monday the 16th the top 10 of which the public will then vote to determine who the winner will be and the recipient of $25,000. for their charity... watch CBC National for the final 10 on Monday.. First it is an honor to get nominated, then to be in the top 50 is amazing.. thank you to all that nominated us..
I leave for Haiti on Sunday.. as you know I have had to cancel all team for the next couple of months.. the Cholera is getting worse... I have attached a letter I just got from the Haiti Ministry of Health about this situation...
Thank you to each of you for making a difference.. your financial support goes a long way and saves many lives... God bless you.. Bob & Linda
CHOLERA
Latest NEWS
Please visit the Haiti MINISTRY OF HEALTH for cholera updates at : www.mspp.gouv.ht
Haiti cholera toll rises
1 hour ago
More than 650 people have died of cholera in Haiti since the start of an outbreak last month, the Haitian journalist group AlterPresse reports. ...
Times LIVE - 1498 related articles
Doctors advised to watch for cholera, especially in travelers ...
MiamiHerald.com - 2 related articles
Resource: Creole Educational flyer :/pulse/data/img/uploads/Cholera_KR%255B1%255D.pdf
-------------------------------------------
NHAHA-The news of cholera outbreak in Haiti broke in the midst of NHAHA's 3-day conference in Haiti from October 20-23, 2010. (See related press release: http://nhaha.org/docs/pressreleases/Cholera_outbreak_Press_Release.pdf ). Conference presentations will be available on NHAHA.org next week. We are working on the conference Proceedings which will be available in the next two weeks.
We are very concerned about the spread of the disease due to current sanitary condition conditions worsened by the earthquake and the recent hurricane. fear that we might be witnessing one of the worst public health disasters in modern time. Follow us on Facebook at:http://www.facebook.com/pages/NHAHA-NATIONAL-HAITIAN-AMERICAN-HEALTH-ALLIANCE/248642144648?ref=ts . F
NHAHA believes supports the following:
There is, at present, no effective vaccine against cholera. The only way to prevent its spread is to interrupt the fecal-oral cycle of contagion. The ways MSF teams do this include:
* providing health education on how to prevent diarrhea including hand-washing, disposal of feces
* Providing education on boiling water and or setting up adequate supplies of safe water. The minimum quantity required in an emergency population is 10 liters per person per day.
* Provision of soap.
* Providing education on proper disposal of human waste while working on the construction of pit latrines in the whole country. The minimum number required in an emergency situation is 1 latrine per 20 people.
* Begin immediate shelter reconstruction to relocate tents inhabitants
* Begin long term reconstruction of the country's infrastructure
--------__ ____________________-----_____________________________-
OVERVIEW: In 1817, a new and terrible disease moved out of Bengal and began to spread across the world. It caused profuse diarrhea and vomiting, and its sufferers died of profound dehydration, sometimes within a matter of hours. By the end of the nineteenth century it had killed many hundreds of thousands of people across Asia and then Russia, Europe, and the Americas. Like many diseases it was given a Greek name... cholera. The word means diarrhea.
Now, at the end of the 20th Century, the world is being circled by the seventh great pandemic of cholera. More than 60 countries report outbreaks each year. In recent years, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams have battled the disease in places as diverse as Guinea in West Africa, Guatemala and Peru in Latin America, and Bangladesh in southern Asia.
How cholera kills
The bacteria Vibrio cholerae is excreted by an infected person in the stools and vomit. It can then be spread directly to other people if they touch the patient and then fail to wash their hands before eating. The germ can also contaminate food or water supplies. In the latter case this will cause an explosive outbreak because many people will ingest the vibrion in a short period of time.
Once inside the intestine, the organism multiplies and produces a toxin. This toxin causes the cells lining the intestine to secrete massive volumes of fluid and leads to diarrhea and vomiting. A patient under treatment can lose more than 50 liters of fluid during a bout of cholera.
A person who is not treated will die of dehydration well before this. In fact, death usually occurs when 10 to 15 per cent of the total body weight is lost. In severe cases this may take only a couple of hours.
Preventing cholera
There is, at present, no effective vaccine against cholera. The only way to prevent its spread is to interrupt the fecal-oral cycle of contagion. The ways MSF teams do this include:
* providing health education on how to prevent diarrhea. The messages include hand-washing, disposal of feces and protection of household water stocks.
* provision of soap.
* working with the community to ensure they have pit latrines. The minimum number required in an emergency situation is 1 latrine per 20 people.
* setting up adequate supplies of safe water. The minimum quantity required in an emergency population is 10 liters per person per day. In all of these preventive activities, MSF water and sanitation engineers and logisticians have a vital role to play - just as important as the role of doctors and nurses.
For example, during the floods in Bangladesh in 1998, many thousands of water wells across the country became contaminated by the rising waters. Cholera vibrios were washed down the pump shafts into the water table below. The greatest danger came after the flood waters started to recede, when people went home and began using their wells again. Part of the health education given by MSF teams to villagers was instruction on how to disinfect their wells.
How MSF teams treat cholera patients
Cholera is treatable. The main pathological process it causes is dehydration - therefore the treatment we use is simply to replace all the fluid being lost.
MSF treats many patients using oral re-hydration solution, called ORS. This is a mixture of glucose and electrolytes (such as sodium and potassium). The solution is stirred into a liter of water and provides the correct balance of electrolytes to re-hydrate a cholera patient. It has been said that in global terms, ORS is the most important medical discovery since penicillin.
Many of our cholera patients vomit so profusely that they cannot drink ORS. MSF therefore treats serious cases by putting in intravenous drips. These IV infusions contain fluid and electrolytes. Some patients lose fluid so quickly that they need two drips, one in each arm. Treating serious cases requires a high degree of skill and experience. In most situations MSF teams are able to limit the case fatality rate to less than 1 per cent. http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/issue_print.cfm?id=2390
Why not vaccines in Haiti? Oral cholera vaccines
There are two vaccines
that
give up to 90 percent protection against cholera - at least in the
short term. But don't expect them to get widespread use to contain
Haiti's current cholera epidemic.
Dr. Jon Andrus
is deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization
and a vaccination
specialist. He explained why cholera vaccine isn't the answer to
Haiti's problem at a Wednesday teleconference
.
NPR asked Andrus if the vaccine might be useful in targeted
populations in advance of new outbreak in Port-au-Prince. Such a "ring
vaccination
" strategy was critical in eradicating smallpox.
Andrus explained that ring vaccination worked in smallpox because
everyone who was infected had symptoms. So when a new case or a small
cluster popped up, it meant other people without symptoms were not yet
infected and were still eligible for a vaccine.
But with cholera, by the time the disease shows up, 80 percent of
people are carrying it - but without any symptoms.
"The horse is out of the barn," Andrus says, "so you can't determine
with any accuracy where that bacterium is circulating...You already
have transmission outside your ring."
There are other reasons why cholera vaccination isn't recommended
during an outbreak. It requires two doses in most people, and three in
young children. Keeping track of who's been vaccinated and getting
them back for a second and third dose presents enormous logistical
problems and a lot of personnel. And even with all that effort, it
still takes three weeks at the least for immunity to build in the
body, Andrus says.
The effort to mount a crash vaccination campaign would also surely
detract from other public health measures known to be effective, like
educating people about hand-washing and handing out safe water, soap
and oral rehydration . Such
measures prevent infections and reduce fatality rates to around 1
percent
.
"Measures to prevent and treat this disease are so effective...that we
don't vaccinate our own staff on the ground or staff we're sending
there," Andrus says.
Having said all that, though, Andrus says PAHO is discussing whether
to vaccinate some populations beyond the current reach of the
outbreak.
But one big problem is the supply of cholera vaccine. There may be
only 200,000 or so doses of Dukoral
,
the only vaccine that's been approved by WHO as safe. PAHO is trying
to find out if the other vaccine, Shanchol
, is
available in bigger quantities. (It's expected to get the green light
from WHO, but it's not clear when.)
So there may be an argument for using one or both vaccines in some
Haitians in the path of cholera. PAHO and Haitian authorities will
need to make that decision soon.
For ore about Cholera vaccine go to: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs107/en/index.html
