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As Campbell backs out of her promised trip to lend a well-manicured hand to assist survivors of the earthquake, she should know that there are prophylactics available to prevent becoming infected with malaria, if it were indeed present in epidemic proportions. Most third world travelers take precautionary medicines as a matter of course. But perhaps it is better that Campbell stay home. I would suggest that she take the money she would have burned on bodyguards, private jets, private ground transportation and the additional money spent by paparazzi and donate it to fund biosurveillance teams that are actually trying to prepare the medical community for what awaits the Haitian population once the rainy season begins.
Sorry to be so cynical, but I have witnessed celebrities around the world using disasters to hone their own images and create award winning films on the backs of victims.
While Campbell makes international headlines for her non-event, Dr. James Wilson, director of Praecipeo International, a non-profit organization that tracks global disease outbreaks, is screaming into the wind about the potential for a real health and environmental catastrophe. Wilson was involved in the detection, tracking, and warning of nearly 250,000 infectious disease events involving over 250 disease entities affecting humans, animals, or plants in nearly every country in the world including Antarctica. He says that Haiti is facing a deadly outbreak of diarrheal disease in infants, and that the country and medical infrastructure is not prepared for the event. Why is no one listening? Wilson and his team are the same analytical team that detected and warned of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in Mexico. As the Washington Post reported, Mexican health authorities tried to warn the WHO's regional office in Washington, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), of a possibly brewing epidemic. People in the WHO's Geneva headquarters received several urgent warnings from Wilson's biosurveillance firm, Veratect, based in Kirkland, Washington. But the warnings went unheeded despite reams of international health regulations.
The delay in making the global health community aware happened despite the adoption in 2005 of international health regulations requiring nations to report to the WHO within 24 hours any disease outbreak that is serious, unusual, at risk of spreading internationally or potentially disruptive of trade. By the time international authorities became fully aware of the outbreak, there were about 800 cases and at least 50 deaths, and the virus was unknowingly being carried into other countries.And now we have Haiti and history is repeating itself. The rainy season is about to unleash torrents on the pummeled cities and hillsides, and we do not mean only water. The situation is ripe for massive outbreaks of not only mosquito-borne illnesses such as dengue fever and malaria, but also waterborne diseases such as Typhoid and diarrheal illnesses in infants. Incidents of infant diarrhea are reaching 25 percent in some areas, and infants can die within 24 hours with no treatment.
The amount of typhoid being reported warrants an adjustment to our assessment, where we now include typhoid as part of "diarrheal disease". The majority of diarrheal disease in children is afebrile or with low fever, which may be associated with a variety of agents such as E. coli, rotavirus, norovirus, and giardia. Shigella and non-typhoidal salmonella species are also present. There is occasional report of febrile bloody diarrhea consistent with typhoid.Wilson provides a kind of "National Weather Service" for infectious disease events. In total, he has and his team has detected, tracked, and provided warning of nearly a quarter of a million infectious disease events to CDC and WHO for every country on earth.
Wilson is not the only health professional sounding an immediate alarm, but still nothing is being done. In March, UNICEF told the Washington Post:
With the rains come the risk of water-borne diseases, which create intestinal bacteria and diarrhea, and diarrhea is deadly to children, said Simon Ingram, a spokesman for UNICEF. The organization estimates that 250,000 children are displaced. In addition, health-care providers noted that the rain could also escalate malaria cases as mosquitoes that reproduce near stagnant water.The notoriously slow-to-react U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also is compiling an epidemiology report, according to the Wall Street Journal:
"As we move from one season to the other, we fully expect an increase of diarrhea and malaria," the CDC's Dr. Ronald Waldman said. "That's what always happens in the rainy season." Ronald. Waldman is a U.S. government medical emergency coordinator who has been stationed in Port-au-Prince since shortly after the earthquake, according to the WSJ.
But this is no ordinary rainy season and no one seems to be making the connection that it is about to spell disaster of epic proportions for Haiti, especially its children.
Here is a portion of a field report that described conditions in a camp in Petionville in mid-March after a very short rain event. Imagine what is about to happen to the watershed.
Overall there is degenerate health risk as you step further into the camp. The clay topsoil has through time been impregnated with urine, feces, and bacteria. The site after a 5-minute rain immediately was a disaster. The urine was immediately recharged and the fecal matter separated from the clay itself. Quickly streams of milky white recharged urine laden with soaked fecal matter laded the camp. Although, it simply rained for 5 minutes, caustic puddles formed on the low-lying areas of the camp. The walking conditions were slick and treacherous, very unsafe. The most difficult aspect was that this was a direct diarrheal disease threat and the entire watershed emptied out onto the streets of PaP (Port-au-Prince). Petionville being one of the highest neighborhoods in all of PaP would assure this caustic brew to spread throughout most of the direct lying streets and communities. This was simply unacceptable.This also begs the question why a camp with inadequate sanitation is situated on a hill where everything drains into the watershed. Go deeper into this camp on the hill and you realize the camp itself is at the bottom of a second hill? Why? To protect the Petionville golf course from being destroyed. Such is Club Haiti, where the concerns of the wealthy still prevail over the lives of the dispossessed. Even the tennis courts are protected.
"Camp Med" guarded by US Marines
Tennis courts at Camp Med in Petionville
So where is the CDC in all of this? The United States has pledged millions and one would expect at least some of it would go to health care and monitoring of potential disease outbreaks. The answer can be found on the CDC webpage, and it is a travesty.
Water Rations..we were told to not even pick them up
The organization is vague about how many field investigators it has in country--perhaps fifteen. Its main concerns are malaria and other vector transmitted diseases as well as making sure that relief workers and Haitians do not bring TB back to the States with them. There appears to be no comprehensive plan in place to prepare and mitigate the waterborne disease epidemic that is almost certain to unfold. The CDC is focused on vaccination programs and vector control for malaria and dengue. This issue of infant mortality due to diarrhea is off the CDC's broken radar. Naomi Campbell is spreading the rumors of a non-event and helping the CDC in its misguided focus on malaria.
Child with diarrheal illness March 12
No rehydration was vailable
As Dr. Wilson told us, public health has a built in resistance to having and effectively using a "National Weather Service"-like warning system for infectious disease crises and disasters. The big threat of a warning system is that its very existence becomes a mechanism for accountability. Having warning information and not acting precipitates Congressional investigations. Hear no evil see no evil. Bureaucrats are risk-adverse by nature.
