- Hello Jeff - As I mentioned in previous email, the UN
has a theory that weather, specifically climate change, led to the Haitian
Cholera outbreak. One would assume that any dormant Cholera on or near
Haiti would not be a typically south Asian strain, but the UN claims that
the UN peacekeepers did not cause the outbreak, even with all of the obvious
proof of overflowing septic system and dumping of raw sewage into the Artibonite
River tributary. As for the vaccine. It is quite convenient
that the south Asian strain was the strain in Haiti, as the vaccine, was
fabricated for and on clinical trials in India which has that south Asian
strain.
-
- I don't see the mainstream media picking up on this.
Amazing (not).
-
- Patty
-
- CHOLERA - HAITI (23): UPDATE
-
- ****************************
-
- A ProMED-mail post http://www.promedmail.org
-
-
- In this Update
-
- [4] Potential use of cholera vaccine [5] Haiti: possible
alternative source of cholera
-
-
- ******
-
- [4] Potential use of cholera vaccine Date: Thu 18 Nov
2010 Source: SciDevNet [edited] http://www.scidev.net/en/news/expert-calls-for-cholera-vaccine-roll-out-in-haiti.html
-
-
- A leading cholera expert has called on WHO to mobilize
a new vaccine so it can be used in Haiti's cholera epidemic. Stephen
Calderwood, chief of the infectious diseases division at the Massachusetts
General Hospital, USA, said the vaccine -- ShanChol -- is cheap and
effective and should be rolled out with minimum delay.
-
- ShanChol is already on sale in India and Viet Nam but
is awaiting "prequalification" by WHO's Prequalification
of Medicines Program, which ensures the quality, safety, and efficacy
of medicines -- essential before they can be distributed internationally
by the UN and US agencies.
-
- The vaccine was first developed in 1997 and has been
used in Viet Nam since 1998, where it is licensed as ORC-Vax. It
was then adapted in 2004 by scientists at the International Vaccine
Institute, South Korea, to meet WHO production guidelines. More recently,
ShanChol passed phase III clinical trials in India, where it reduced
cholera incidence by two thirds among 70 000 people, in 2009.
-
- "I think there is already adequate data for the
use of the vaccine in the epidemic -- [the WHO] should be buying
vaccine right now and getting it to Haiti," said Calderwood.
"For some reason ShanChol has not yet been prequalified. I communicated
with the WHO recently and I think they are going to move ahead and
prequalify it," he said.
-
- byline: Mico Tatalovic
-
- -- communicated by: HealthMap Alerts via ProMED-mail
promed@promedmail.org
-
- The vaccine is an orally administered, inactivated, and
bivalent (O1 and O139) whole-cell biologic. - Mod.LL
-
- ****** [5] Haiti: possible alternative source of cholera
Date: Mon 22 Nov 2010 Source: The Guardian, SciDevNet report [edited] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/22/haiti-cholera-un-weather
-
-
- Weather conditions, not UN soldiers, may have triggered
Haiti's cholera epidemic, which has killed more than 1000 people
in less than a month, 3 leading researchers have told SciDevNet.
-
- A coincidence of catastrophic events, from climatic changes
caused by the ocean-atmosphere phenomenon La Nina, to the plunge
in water and sanitation quality following Haiti's disastrous January
[2010] earthquake, provide the most likely explanation for the outbreak.
-
- The outbreak suddenly appeared in small communities along
the Artibonite River, 60 miles [96.5 km] north of the capital Port-au-Prince,
on 21 Oct 2010. Its origin has not been determined with certainty
but the popular belief is that the disease arrived with infected
UN soldiers from Nepal. They were stationed in a rural base near
the river where the outbreak first started. Cholera is endemic in
Nepal whereas Haiti has not had a recorded cholera case in the last
50 years.
-
- CDC said in a press release earlier this month [November
2010] that genetic analysis of the cholera strain that hit Haiti
reveals that it most closely matches South Asian strains, which further
fuelled the suspicion.
-
- But scientists SciDevNet talked to all rejected the idea
that cholera was imported from Nepal. "_Vibrio cholerae_, the
bacterium responsible for cholera, may have been dormant in water
until weather-related conditions caused it to multiply enough to
constitute an infective dose if ingested by humans," said David
Sack, a cholera specialist at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg
School of Public Health in the USA.
-
- Rita Colwell, a professor at the University of Maryland,
also in the USA, agreed that the aquatic environment conditions produced
by a strong La Nina this year [2010] may have made cholera flare
up in Haiti for the 1st time in 50 years.
-
- Colwell's research aims to predict cholera outbreaks
by correlating disease occurrence with weather patterns, water surface
temperatures, and algal blooms (on which plankton that house the
bacteria feed). She has found that the annual patterns of higher
sea temperatures along the coast correlate with patterns of cholera
cases in both Bangladesh and Peru, based on data from 1992-1995 and
1997-2000, respectively.
-
- Weather conditions do not have to be present together
with poor sanitation and lack of clean water for an epidemic to occur,
she said, but the latter increase chances of an outbreak. Cholera
spreads when faeces from infected humans, who may not present any
cholera symptoms, get into drinking water that other people consume.
-
- Afsar Ali, an associate professor of environmental and
global health at the University of Florida, USA, agrees that climatic
factors promoted the bacteria's multiplication in the Artibonite
area. He told SciDevNet that when he visited Haiti in August 2010,
refugees from the earthquake were using water directly from the river
and ocean.
-
- -- communicated by: ProMED-mail promed@promedmail.org
-
- Cholera is found, albeit rarely, along the Gulf coast
of the USA, along with other pathogenic vibrios such as _V. vulnificus_
and _V. parahaemolyticus_. Certainly the weather conditions can increase
replication of vibrios during warmer weather together with the lack of
clean water and adequate sewage disposal. The strain, however, was a South
Asian one suggesting introduction from that area either from a person or
from bilge water from a ship from that area. Establishing "blame"
here does not help in the outbreak, however, as the pale horse is
out of the barn. - Mod.LL
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural
Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at:http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php Also
my new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ Zhan le Devlesa tai
sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
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