Haiti Cholera and a Plethora of Haiti Medical Condition Data
Abstract:
In January 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing over 200,000 people and further disrupting healthcare and sanitation infrastructure in the country. In the aftermath of the earthquake, at the request and direction of UNESCO, international workers from many countries arrived in Haiti to assist in the response and recovery efforts. Nine months following the earthquake, in Week 42 of 2010, cholera broke out and spread across the country. Before the outbreak, no cases of cholera had been identified in Haiti for more than a century, and the Caribbean region as a whole had not been affected by cholera outbreaks. The population's lack of prior exposure and acquired immunity likely contributed to the severity of the outbreak. Following the outbreak of cholera, Doctors Without Borders (DWBs) engaged a Team of environmental epidemiologists, empirical data analysts and statisticians from North Carolina State University (NCSU) and Coastal Carolina University (CCU) to address the circumstances of the outbreak and spread of Cholera across Haiti. The Team quickly reported that the data showed that there were spatial sequential high-density outbreaks at all of the seven Haiti Public Health Centers and that Cholera had been introduced by and was being carried across Haiti by people who suddenly appeared and were infected with and carrying the disease. The Team reported this to DWBs, who determined that Nepalese peacekeepers sent to Haiti by UNESCO were carrying the disease and introduced to Haiti. Moreover, the NCSU-CCU Team correctly forecasted further outbreaks and spreads of the disease over a several year period [1, 2]. In addition to Cholera, other medical condition data were also collected at the seven Haiti Public Health Centers. This report describes temporal and spatial relationships of the Cholera cases across Haiti and also those other medical condition data and their apparent correlations to Cholera or not. As Cholera outbreaks are more common in warmer climates, and as global climate change is advancing, associated medical conditions, as found to be related to the 2010 and subsequent Cholera outbreaks in Haiti, may portend future outbreaks.
