The Haitian government is expected to launch a cholera vaccination campaign this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) and local officials have said after the Caribbean nation received its first shipment of jabs.
Haiti has been struggling to contain an outbreak of the disease amid a recent surge in gang violence that led to fuel and electricity shortages, including at hospitals and other health facilities in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The country received an initial shipment of approximately 1.17 million cholera vaccines on Monday, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the regional WHO branch, said in a statement.
Authorities will focus early vaccination efforts on people over the age of one living in areas that have reported the most cholera cases to date, it said. That includes the Port-au-Prince neighbourhoods of Cite Soleil and Delmas, among other places.
“The arrival of oral vaccines in Haiti is a step in the right direction,” the director of Haiti’s Public Health and Population Ministry, Laure Adrien, said in the statement. “We hope this first shipment will be followed by others so that the vaccine is available to all populations at risk in Haiti.”
Haiti has appealed for help to combat the outbreak of cholera, which began in early October and has most severely affected people that are already vulnerable.
United Nations officials have said that children account for about 40 percent of cases, and nine out of 10 cases have occurred in areas of the country also struggling with high levels of malnutrition and poverty.
Manuel Fontaine, director of UNICEF’s office of emergency programmes, said last month that Haitian children faced a “triple threat” of violence, malnutrition, and cholera.
