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PORT-AU-PRINCE (Haiti), Nov. 23 (AP) — The cholera outbreak sweeping Haiti is killing more children from malnutrition, UNICEF announced Wednesday.
The deadly combination means that around 40 percent of cholera cases in the impoverished country of more than 11 million inhabitants now involve children, and nine out of 10 cases are reported to be in areas where people are starving, according to the UN agency .
“We have to prepare for the worst,” Manuel Fontaine, director of UNICEF’s Office of Emergency Programs, told The Associated Press on Tuesday during a visit to Haiti.
Cholera has killed more than 200 people and hospitalized another 9,300 since the first cholera death was announced in early October, according to the Haitian Ministry of Health, but experts believe the figure is much higher due to underreporting.
UNICEF and the Haitian government are seeking at least $28 million to help provide food, water and care to 1.4 million people affected by the crisis, a figure expected to rise as malnutrition worsens, especially in the capital Cite Soleil and other urban areas of Port-au-Prince, something never seen before.
“Cholera and malnutrition are a deadly combination, one leading to the other,” Fontaine said.
Nurses, doctors and social workers tend to malnourished children battling cholera at the Gheskio medical clinic in Port-au-Prince on a recent morning.
“It was a challenge for us,” said Dr Karine Severe, who heads the clinic’s cholera unit. “When kids are malnourished, they take more time to recover.”
She estimates malnutrition cases have risen by at least 40 percent in recent weeks, with nurses giving children soup in the morning and rice, beans, meat and vegetables in the afternoon to help them gain weight.
In a country where roughly 60 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, not many parents can afford this kind of food.
Roselord David, 40, said she and her five children had to flee Sun City after a warring gang set fire to her house. They temporarily lived in a park before moving in with her sister as she continued to struggle to find food for the children.
A social worker saw her emaciated 5-year-old daughter in the park and urged David to take her to the clinic.
“They told me she was malnourished,” whispers David, shy about revealing her family’s problems in a clinic packed with patients.
Nearby, a 15-year-old teenage boy sleeps with an IV in his emaciated arm.
His friend Island Meus said she took turns caring for him with his mother.
“He skips meals sometimes,” she confided, adding that he occasionally eats a bowl of plantain rice if his family can afford it.
The Haitian government recently requested a cholera vaccine, but with a global shortage of cholera vaccine and outbreaks reported in 31 countries, it is unclear if and when the vaccine will arrive. However, Fontaine said Haiti would be prioritized.
The country’s first brush with cholera came in 2010, when UN peacekeepers from Nepal introduced the bacteria into the country’s largest river through sewage. Nearly 10,000 people died and more than 850,000 became sick.
This time, the situation is more complicated, said Boby Sanders, director of Food for the Hungry Haiti. Nearly half of cholera patients are now under the age of 15 and are struggling to survive amid a deepening malnutrition crisis, he said in a telephone interview.
The situation is worsening as a spike in gang violence has prevented aid groups from reaching those most in need.
“It’s really complicated,” he said. “We have to act now.” (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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