First of
all this week, I decided to focus on an epidemic that has recently sparked the
interest of health organizations. The Haitian Cholera epidemic, there are initiatives
in place for health communities to find ways to improve water infections, which
can prevent about 89,000 cholera infections. However, Cholera became a renewed issue
shortly after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Cholera claimed 8,000 lives. Haiti has never had good health and it has
been a struggle for many years claims Jon Andrus who is a deputy director of
the Pan American Health Organization. Now, I am sure you all are wondering why am
I choosing to talk about cholera? Because it is affecting the lives of people
everywhere and not just Haiti. The long term impacts of cholera are the concern,
according to the WHO, “Although rarely so deadly, outbreaks continue to be of
major public health concern, causing considerable socioeconomic disruption as
well as loss of life” the information I found on cholera was shocking in the
fact that most of the time it is brought on by living conditions that people
must live in because of an earthquake or some other natural disaster.
Cholera can cause economic issues in many places due to the
sheer fact that some things are restricted, stated on the WHO website, “the
cholera outbreak in Peru in 1991 cost the country US$ 770 million due to food
trade embargoes and adverse effects on tourism.” The example I just stated cost Peru a pretty penny;
think about if they were able to pocket that money. The health system suffers,
the whole country suffers based off of a few Cholera outbreaks, and it’s a
snowball effect. The fact that the health of other countries is not maintained
to a good standard, and there are not preventive measures in place to keep
outbreaks like this from occurring is detrimental. In the article, they stated that according to
a recent article in the American Journal
of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, “The authors said that the sewer and
water improvements, combined with vaccination, could prevent some 89,000 future
cholera infections.” The problem here is that this disease could get worse and
it lies within the hands of the health organizations to improve places like
these, cholera is an easily transmittable disease that is water-bourne and
could travel fast and creates a large epidemic that is why it is important to
end it where it begins. However, according to this article changes and health initiatives are being driven by the cholera outbreaks.
1:23 AM
10/18/2013
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