GHESKIO team published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Cholera Resurgence in Haiti

Drs. Karine Severe, Nadalette Alcenat, and Vanessa Rouzier, an all-female team of doctors from GHESKIO in Haiti, were published in the New England Journal of Medicine on the country’s recent resurgence of cholera. The outbreak, which originated in Port-au-Prince, now has reported suspected cases in eight of ten of Haiti’s geographic regions.

Since the recent epidemic’s start, GHESKIO has opened a cholera treatment center in downtown Port-au-Prince. This neighborhood is largely inaccessible to government health workers due to gang control, and suffers from extreme poverty, unreliable housing, and a lack of clean water and sanitation. The outbreak of cholera is concurrent with political instability and gang violence, resulting in fuel shortages that make the resurgence more difficult to control. Lack of fuel keeps the national water utility from pumping drinkable water to vulnerable populations and bars garbage trucks from keeping trash off the streets. These factors, in combination with heavy rainfall, has contributed to widespread water contamination, which has only proliferated the spread of cholera throughout Haiti.

Senior author, Dr. Vanessa Rouzier is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell and Center for Global Health faculty, provided training and technical support to the team in Haiti.

Read the full letter to the editor here.

Article by Megan Willkens