Kelsey Layton
November 17, 2010
3:42 PM
As in several of my past blogs, I have talked about how many infectious diseases have been spreading not only in the United States, but in the other parts of the world also. This week though an epidemic that has been causing riots and fear in the country of Haiti has not reached to the United States, to the shores of Florida. State officials have told about how a women who had been visiting her family in the caribbean country, and she has now developed signs of cholera since returning to the states. This disease has been causing major problems in Haiti, including killing more than 1,000 in recent months, and hospitializing thousands more. Even though the problem is spreading so rapidly in Haiti, they do not expect the single case in Florida to spread. Health officials dont anticipate the cases to spread in the United States because our water and sanitation systems really cut down on the risk to people. A similar outbreakof cholera broke out in Latin America during the 1990s with some cases occuring in Florida but the cases were only limited to about 20. But on the other hand, in 1910 when there was an outbreak in New York City the disease killed eleven people. This disease is one that is killing thousands anually and effects millions each year in less developed countries. Is this disease one that we should be more concerned with right now, until waiting for the problem to get worse? Health problems in the United States are something that could cause more problems than if it was caught at the beginning.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/11/17/2010-11-17_cholera_hits_united_states_florida_woman_sick_with_disease_after_visit_to_haiti.html?r=news/national
5 comments:
I have also been reporting on the cholera in Haiti, and this is horrible. As I was reporting I thought about how horrible it would be if it hit America, and now it has! It should be under close watch, because if it gets around America, there could be a huge epidemic. This needs to be watched before people die.
It never hurts to take precautions. Yes, we may have better sanitation than countries like Haiti, but that doesn't mean we are invinsible. I still believe that we should take precautions to prevent it from spreading now. If we wait for it become more serious by infecting more people, it will be harder to contain.
I agree with you all that we need to take precautions for this because it can spread very rapidly. Even though this is possible the chance is very slim because we have better sanitation and cleaner water in the United States. The number of cases of Cholera are very small but it only takes a few to begin spreading. I don't look for this to be a major epidemic but it never hurts to be on the look out for it.
I agree with everyone on this, when finding this article I found it alarming that in a sense, the United States think that they can not get cholera, like we are in some way better than them. I think that panic is not needed, but through education and preparation we could fight the epidemic if it would ever become a major problem in the states.
I found this article unbelievably shocking. I did not know that cholera had spread to the U.S. and I did not know that the United States has seen cases of cholera in the past. I've seen pictures on the internet and it is sickening to think that the U.S., if not careful, could end up like Haiti.
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