BIOSURVEILLANCE UPDATE - 16

OPERATIONAL BIOSURVEILLANCE

Current official stats are more than 14,600 cases and 917 fatalities.

In some areas of Haiti, we have confirmation that in-patient statistics are under-reported by as much as 400%. In many areas of Haiti, we are documenting outbreaks that are not being accounted for in the official statistics.

There is no question of under-reporting. If we assume the case counts are 1/4 the true community load, then we now have nearly 60k cases shedding pathogen into the environment.

We believe the true statistic to be closer to more than 100k based on the degree of under-reporting. It is extremedly difficult to estimate the true scale of this epidemic now. This is a grossly uncontrolled, uncontained epidemic of cholera that has exceeded public health capacity to investigate and assess every site reported and every sample received.

Evidence now suggests the epidemic has crossed the border into the Dominican Republic, which was expected.

LA GONAVE: GROUND TRUTH INDICATES NO CRISIS

Yesterday an HEAS partner forwarded a report from WorldShare, a British charity, that claimed the sole hospital facility on the island of La Gonave, Haiti was experiencing IDIS Cat 4 / 5 conditions due to cholera. Two separate HEAS partners obtained ground truth verifying the facility at present is stable and is NOT seeing a surge of cholera patients. The facility has seen a couple of patients with diarrhea and recently, 2 suspect cases of cholera, but no surge and no fatalities reported.

FLASH REPORT: CHOLERA IN LEOGANE AND CARREFOUR

Leogane was the closest to the earthquake epicenter and sustained the greatest damage. After the quake, the community received far less attention than Port au Prince by aid agencies. It therefore was second only to Cite Soleil in terms of our concern for the community and potential impact of cholera. Today we have received report from an HEAS partner that cholera has been confirmed:

- MSF has lab confirmed 2 cases of cholera, Léogâne residents, no travel history- MSF has another 3 highly suspected cases- They will no longer test because once there are confirmed cases the epidemic is confirmedThe situation is now an IDIS Cat 3. We assess it likely Leogane will reach IDIS Category 5 within a short period of time.

Simultaneously, we received report of 50 cases in Carrefour.