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Haiti doctors fear malaria and typhoid as rainy season arrives
Tom Phillips in Port-au-Prince
The Observer, Sunday 31 January 2010
Excerpts:
''If it rains, there will be a great deal of disease," said Dr Thierry Causse, a GP from the French Red Cross who is working at a field clinic near the Place St Pierre refugee camp in P?tionville, where rivers of urine flow through the square.
"We are afraid of a typhoid epidemic, of a malaria epidemic. We have a lot of doctors here, but if there is an epidemic there will be a big problem. There could be a lot of dead people if it is not treated quickly and properly."
"When there is a population displacement and lack of water and sanitation facilities, there is always a risk of diarrhoeal diseases, including cholera," said Roshan Khadivi of Unicef, adding that water and sanitation diseases were major killers of children under five. On Friday Unicef announced a
"major immunisation campaign" for the city's children, after reports of measles among the young. Khadivi said the campaign against measles, diphtheria and tetanus would begin on Tuesday."
"They are sleeping in the street, peeing in the street and shitting in the street. Their parents are sad because they have lost children, friends or family members," said Pierre Biales, a Paris-based psychologist from the Red Cross, who is offering counselling and trying to teach basic hygiene to children in the camps. "Taking care of the children is now an emergency."
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Tom Phillips in Port-au-Prince
The Observer, Sunday 31 January 2010
Excerpts:
''If it rains, there will be a great deal of disease," said Dr Thierry Causse, a GP from the French Red Cross who is working at a field clinic near the Place St Pierre refugee camp in P?tionville, where rivers of urine flow through the square.
"We are afraid of a typhoid epidemic, of a malaria epidemic. We have a lot of doctors here, but if there is an epidemic there will be a big problem. There could be a lot of dead people if it is not treated quickly and properly."
"When there is a population displacement and lack of water and sanitation facilities, there is always a risk of diarrhoeal diseases, including cholera," said Roshan Khadivi of Unicef, adding that water and sanitation diseases were major killers of children under five. On Friday Unicef announced a
"major immunisation campaign" for the city's children, after reports of measles among the young. Khadivi said the campaign against measles, diphtheria and tetanus would begin on Tuesday."
"They are sleeping in the street, peeing in the street and shitting in the street. Their parents are sad because they have lost children, friends or family members," said Pierre Biales, a Paris-based psychologist from the Red Cross, who is offering counselling and trying to teach basic hygiene to children in the camps. "Taking care of the children is now an emergency."
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