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Haiti launched a campaign on Sunday to vaccinate more than 10 percent of its population against cholera, but gang control of large swaths of the territory will complicate the effort.
The Caribbean nation has 1.17 million doses of the oral vaccine on hand, with nearly 500,000 more on the way.
The campaign will focus on Haitians aged 1 to 5, the age group involved in nearly half of the confirmed cases.
Since October, cholera has spread rapidly across the country. The National Ministry of Epidemiology, Laboratory and Research has registered more than 14,700 suspected cases, nearly 1,270 confirmed cases and more than 290 deaths.
Vaccine availability is a problem, said Jean Bosco Hulute, a UNICEF health specialist.
“Many countries are currently experiencing cholera epidemics, leading to vaccine shortages,” he told AFP.
A single dose provides six months of protection, while a second dose extends that to a full two years, Hulute noted.
The vaccination campaigns planned for December 18-22 and December 27-28 will focus on the hardest-hit neighborhoods and neighborhoods, including Cite Soleil, Delmas, Carrefour, Port-au-Prince and Mirabelais.
But the job won’t be easy as gang violence ravages the impoverished country.
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“In unsafe areas, especially where kidnappings and shootings have occurred, vaccination and communications teams will not be fully protected,” Hulute said.
He said UNICEF was calling for “unfettered access to these teams where gangs are in control, because that would allow people to receive these protective oral vaccine drops.”
In 2010, UN peacekeepers from Nepal brought cholera into Haiti, sparking the first cholera outbreak. In the ensuing decade, cholera claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people.
Today, Haitians are painfully aware of the danger of cholera, but public health efforts are severely hampered by a chaotic political, economic and security situation.
Tristan Rousset of the Pan American Health Organisation, said that while the outbreak did not resemble the outbreak of 2010, it had hit “all parts of the country” and crisis conditions “paved the way for an outbreak”.
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