(Geneva) The vaccination campaign against cholera, which continues to expand in Haiti, will begin on Sunday, the UN said, after the arrival of the first doses of vaccine in this country, in the grip of a serious security crisis. , economical and sanitary.
“The vaccination campaign should start on Sunday,” said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary General, who has repeatedly expressed concern about the increasingly chaotic situation in Haiti, in part controlled by armed gangs.
The country received around 1.17 million doses of oral cholera vaccines on Monday “as cases continue to rise in the country,” the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said in a statement.
Some 500,000 additional doses must be delivered “in the coming weeks”, the organization said.
“Across Haiti, the number of suspected cases has increased by almost 10% over the past week. Port-au-Prince remains the most affected area, but confirmed cases are unfortunately increasing elsewhere, ”explained Mr. Dujarric, during the daily UN briefing in New York.
The vaccination campaign will focus first of all on the most affected parts of the country (Cité Soleil, Delmas, Tabarre, Carrefour and Port-au-Prince as well as Mirabelais) and will concern residents over the age of one.
Cholera has spread rapidly across Haiti over the past few weeks. To date, the National Department of Epidemiology, Laboratories and Research (DELR) reports 1,220 confirmed cases and more than 280 deaths from cholera in eight departments, with more than 14,100 suspected cases spread across the country’s ten departments. , underlines the press release.
The vaccine (Evichol) was provided by the International Vaccine Supply Coordination Group (IGC), which manages the global stock of cholera vaccines, following a request from the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population. (MSPP), had specified the OPS.
In mid-November, the UN launched an appeal to raise $145.6 million to deal with the epidemic.
But in a country ravaged by gang violence, the humanitarian needs go beyond the sole question of this resurgence of cholera, which killed more than 10,000 people between 2010 and 2019.
Thus, while one in two Haitians does not have enough to eat, the UN is preparing a humanitarian plan for 2023 valued at $719 million, almost twice as much as for 2022.