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Analysis - Thoughts about Haiti's cholera numbers

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  • Analysis - Thoughts about Haiti's cholera numbers

    hat tip Crawford Kilian

    August 08, 2012

    Thoughts about Haiti's cholera numbers

    Yesterday I posted Haiti's cholera deaths as of August 2. And today I posted a ReliefWeb item about an organization of NGOs in Haiti and its criticism of the way the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) has been handling cholera surveillance. Those items got me thinking about a couple of issues.

    First, the NGOs invoked the WHO forecast of 200,000 "affected" by cholera this year. I've dealt with this before, but now we've got seven months of MSPP numbers (such as they are). Those numbers show 523,993 cholera cases as of January 1, 2012. For August 2, 251 days later, the cases total 583,871—an increase of 65,777 so far this year.

    So over 251 days Haiti has seen a daily average of 262 cases. If that rate continues, the total number of cholera cases this year will be 95,892. That's about half the WHO prediction, and it's appalling enough that it ought to do for fundraising purposes.

    As of January 1, 7,018 people had died of cholera; as of August 2, the number was 7,497. So 479 people have died so far, a daily average of 1.9. Projected over the whole year, that suggests a 2012 cholera death toll in Haiti of 695. That's bad, but it's only 9 per cent of the total since October 2010.

    MSPP's daily counts, as unreliable as they are, do include one element that I have carefully avoided mentioning. MSPP counts cases and deaths by total population, and by population over age 5. And like every other person and agency reporting Haiti's cholera, I have neglected to look at its impact on babies and small children.

    The MSPP numbers imply that as of August 2, 75,076 children aged 5 or less have contracted cholera since October 2010. Out of 7,497 Haitian cholera deaths, 652 were children under 5—8.69 per cent of fatalities. I don't know what proportion of Haiti's population is in that age range, but even one dead baby from cholera is too many.

    As I keep saying, I hate playing amateur epidemiologist. Surely some professional in the field has studied the impact of cholera on Haiti's population. I would be very grateful to link to a real analysis of the situation.


    August 08, 2012 at 05:51 PM
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