Mind & Body

Programme de vaccination contre le choléra en Haïti soulève des questions

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haïti (defend.ht) - Une campagne de vaccination contre le choléra est à l'étude en Haïti. Toutefois, les experts de la santé s'interroger sur la pertinence d'un programme qui ne concerne que 1% de la population.

Hundreds of health workers will be sent to dusty streets of Haitian capital and in the remotest villages of the country for a vaccine against the disease.

Organization Partners in Health in Boston, and the Gheskio Center, a nonprofit organization, originally dedicated to the fight against AIDS, joined the vaccination campaign hoping it can save lives.

However, the pilot project, which has not yet obtained all the US $ 870 000 required for its implementation, has triggered a debate among public health experts. Many of them question the relevance of a program that does not vaccinate only 1% of the population and could exhaust the limited supplies of vaccines against cholera, potentially putting at risk other regions vulnerable to disease.

The experts also wonder whether it will be possible to administer a successful vaccine to be given in two doses, two weeks apart. They believe it would be useful to clean the streams that allowed the spread of cholera in the country.