22329: (Craig) NYT: Disease, Hunger Dog Haiti Flood Victims (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>


Disease, Hunger Dog Haiti Flood Victims
June 14, 2004
By REUTERS
Filed at 4:49 p.m. ET

MAPOU, Haiti (Reuters) - Doctors are fighting to prevent
multiple epidemics among survivors from the drowned Haitian
town of Mapou, one of the worst-hit areas in floods that
killed about 2,600 people three weeks ago.

A small team of doctors from Cuba and from the Paris-based
Doctors Without Borders are fighting outbreaks of
mosquito-borne fevers like malaria and dengue in Mapou,
which is still under water following the May 24 floods.

``Now the situation is under control. We are trying to
prevent an epidemic. But it can explode any time,'' Cuban
physician Miuber Castillo told reporters on Sunday.

The floods, triggered by days of torrential rains, swamped
entire villages in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which
share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

More than 1,000 flood survivors have visited an improvised
health clinic set up in Mapou, a valley village about 25
miles southeast of Port-au-Prince.

Apart from malaria and dengue, doctors reported a high
incidence of diarrhea, respiratory failure and scabies.

Castillo and a Cuban colleague walked for more than six
hours over mountains, across rivers and through bush and
mud to reach Mapou, isolated when its only access road was
washed away.

One of the lives they saved was that of Elda Lundi, 25, who
gave birth to a baby at her home without assistance.

``When she was transported here to the clinic she appeared
to be in a stable situation,'' said Castillo. ``But
suddenly her situation deteriorated seriously.''

A physician with Doctors Without Borders donated blood for
a transfusion to save the woman before she was evacuated by
helicopter to Port-au-Prince, where she and the baby were
reported to be doing well, Castillo said.

Doctors said they saw about 100 patients a day in their
makeshift clinic but many others with serious conditions
have no transport to get there.

``So we organized mobile clinics to bring medical
assistance to those people in their communities,'' said Dr.
Alexander Perez, one of more than 500 doctors and health
specialists deployed in Haiti by Cuba since the late 1990s.


A helicopter on Sunday transported nearly eight tonnes of
rice, vegetable oil and biscuits to the region, along with
generators, plastic sheets for shelter, water buckets,
tents and mattresses donated by Japan. Some 200 hungry
children lined up for biscuits in Mapou on Sunday.

The International Red Cross was helping to move people from
low-lying towns to villages built on nearby hillsides to
minimize the risk of further flood disasters.

The six-month Caribbean hurricane season began on June 1,
adding to fears of more heavy rains and mudslides. Haiti is
particularly vulnerable to flash floods because its
citizens have virtually stripped the land of trees to make
charcoal, the primary cooking fuel.

Enough supplies to provide temporary shelter to some 360
families had arrived in the region but shelters for only 50
had been built, a Red Cross official said.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-haiti.html?ex=1088334733&ei=1&en=9560098bab38052e
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company