1. Cholera and the Road to Modernity: Lessons from One Latin American Epidemic for Another
- Author:
- Jonathan Weigel and Paul Farmer
- Publication Date:
- 03-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Haiti is currently battling the world's largest cholera epidemic in half a century. An integrated, comprehensive response—including case-finding and rapid treatment, water and sanitation efforts, and vaccination—could bring cholera to heel on Hispaniola and help prevent its spread elsewhere in the region.1 But the local and international response has, to date, fallen short. Tens of thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths were reported in May and June of this year.2 If the disease had appeared in the United States or elsewhere in the developed world, all available control tools would have been deployed. But the safe, effective and inexpensive cholera vaccine has only recently become available in Haiti. In April, the Haitian Ministry of Health and two healthcare nonprofits began delivering vaccines to about 91,000 people in rural and urban Haiti.
- Topic:
- Development and Health
- Political Geography:
- United States and Latin America