23400: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald-In Haiti, typhoid fever cases suspected (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Oct. 11, 2004




DISEASE


In Haiti, typhoid fever cases suspected

BY SUSANNAH A. NESMITH

snesmith@herald.com


GONAIVES, Haiti - American doctors working in this flood-ravaged city said
Sunday that they have found a suspected case of typhoid fever, and the local
Red Cross acknowledged that there have been ''several'' others.

The man suspected of having typhoid fever, a highly contagious and
life-threatening water-borne disease, was taken by his family to a clinic
staffed by five doctors and four nurses of the Miami chapter of the Haitian
Physicians Association. The team arrived in Port-au-Prince on Saturday and
traveled to Gonaives, where they began seeing patients Sunday morning.

''We have the one case of typhoid,'' said Dr. Yves Jodesty, who practices
internal medicine at Broward General Medical Center. ``Are there more? Most
likely. I'm just waiting to see.''

Aid agencies have feared epidemic diseases in Gonaives since floods washed
through this city of 250,000 on Sept. 18. The waters did not recede for ten
days, leaving the residents to wade through water that was waist-high in
some areas. More than 1,800 were killed in the floods, and bodies floated in
the water for days. Floods washed out the main roads into town, hampering
relief efforts and delaying the arrival of drinking water supplies.

Haitian Red Cross president Dr. Michaele Amedee-Gedeon said several other
cases of suspected typhoid have turned up in Gonaives in the past few days.

''There were a few cases last week,'' she said. ``We don't want to panic
people. We have not confirmed this with laboratory tests yet. We don't have
the tests here. But yes, we do seem to have typhoid here now.''

She said the patient at the Hospital Independence, where the
Haitian-American delegation had set up, was to be transferred to the city of
St. Marc, three hours away, because tests were available there. But as the
patient suffered high fevers and diarrhea for 15 days, the doctors were
fairly certain.

Before the delegation from Florida arrived, Haitian doctors and nurses were
staffing the clinic, which doesn't have running water or electricity,
Amedee-Gedeon said.

''Haitians have been working here since the very first hour,'' she said. ``I
think the world should know that it is not just the international community
working here. Haitians are working, too.''

Jodesty, president of the Miami chapter of the Haitian Physicians
Association, said his organization arrived with donations of medicine and
equipment from North Shore Hospital and Holy Cross Hospital. The team plans
to stay in Gonaives one week and then be replaced by a fresh team.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is working to set up a
temporary hospital to replace the main Gonaives hospital, damaged by the mud
that rushed through the city.

U.N. peacekeepers sent Argentine, Uruguayan and Brazilian army medics into
Gonaives shortly after the floods, staffing a clinic that delivered 48
babies before closing down Saturday.


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