Oct 24 2011
The WHO on Friday "said the number of cholera cases in Haiti is expected to reach 500,000 by the end of the year" if current trends continue, Agence France-Presse reports. As of October, the agency estimated 470,000 cases of the disease and 6,600 cholera deaths had occurred since the outbreak began in 2010, the news service notes. "The number of new cholera cases in Haiti halved in August, but the rainy season is once again worsening the situation, the WHO warned," AFP writes (10/22).
"WHO cholera expert Claire-Lise Chaignat told reporters in Geneva on Friday that the disease was also likely to become endemic in the Caribbean nation," and said the WHO is determining the feasibility of a large-scale cholera vaccination campaign in Haiti, the Associated Press/Washington Post reports (10/21).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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