Avellon Williams
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI- Almost four months after cholera reappeared in this French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member, 496 people have died.
According to the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP), the country has already registered 25,182 suspected cases and 21,407 hospitalizations, 73 of them new; 312 of the 496 deaths have occurred in hospitals and 184 have occurred in communities.
A bulletin from the health authorities states that the average age of those infected is 19 years, and the positivity rate is 37.25 percent.
There are 56.60 percent of suspected cases among men, and the rest among women.
There have been 374 confirmed cases of the virus out of over 3,000 suspected ones among 1 to 4 year olds.
A total of 1,155 confirmed cases and 16,408 suspected cases have been reported in the West, where Port-au-Prince is located and where more than one-third of the population lives.
Several countries are experiencing unprecedented cholera outbreaks due to climate disasters and other crises, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Due to this, vaccines to prevent this disease have become “extremely scarce.”
