Prevention and education are core elements to Haiti Outreach Pwoje Espwa's Sante nan Lakou model, which seeks to identify and address the root causes of illness and disease. Recently, there was a need to address a potential outbreak of cholera. Cholera is a life-threatening and often fatal disease that is often transmitted through
contaminated water.
Our S.E.E. team, led by our medical director, Thony Voltaire, MD, identified some potentially contaminated water sources. Immediately, the team worked with the community leaders to first identify ways to protect
the sources and secondly, when a water source is contaminated, how to treat it quickly and properly.
Once the contamination source was addressed, our teams took the same education to the community. These larger community awareness sessions focused on proper water treatment with purification tablets, boiling, and solar disinfection, the distribution of oral rehydration solution and water purification tablets, and home visits in critical areas.
These efforts have been proven to be successful in containing outbreaks, keeping the community healthy, and reducing mortality rates. In 2010 during one of the worst cholera outbreaks, we partnered with Doctors Without Borders and the American Red Cross to coordinate a comprehensive response. Then, our hospital treated 80 to 90 cases of cholera a day. Today, in great contrast, during this outbreak we saw only 82 cases over the span of two entire months.
Because of continued community support, our joint efforts with the community of Borgne have been widely recognized as some of the most effective in Haiti resulting in substantially lower mortality rates than in other rural areas. Today we ask that you share our success with others so that they, too, can support giving hope to the community of Borgne.
With great appreciation,
Haiti Outreach Pwoje Espwa's
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