Sanitation

It's extraordinary to me how few people I spoke to about Haiti in the UK before I left, or on the plane to the US before reaching Haiti, have any clear grasp of the awful and back-breaking poverty which the people of Haiti endure. Even before this latest disaster struck many of them lived without running water or electricity, or without regular access to medical assistance or education. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, yet there are many countries even more poor scattered across Africa.

Perhaps the worst problem caused by this horrendous poverty, and about to be exacerbated by the consequences of the earthquake, is the community-wide susceptibility to disease. With poverty comes poor nourishment, as so many scrape a meagre existence on the little they have or can get from aid agencies. This means that when disease strikes immunity is low and the physical strength to fight the ravages of diseases such as malaria and dengue is simply not there. Which is why the impending rainy season in Haiti is such a frightening prospect. Hundreds of thousands of people, already weakened by years of poor nourishment, reduced to homelessness and a minimal level of food for several weeks in a world suddenly shorn of what little sanitation had been present previously. There is a massive effort underway to provide adequate public sanitation but the scale of the task is immense. Combine this with the fact that there are still bodies as yet unrecovered in the rubble of this once vibrant city, and the combination of rainy season and tropical heat turns Port au Prince into a giant petri dish where diseases such as cholera and typhoid can flourish. Malaria & dengue will find more victims than usual this year, and the net effect is that Haiti is facing a public health catastrophe on a massive scale.

Simple humanity has led many individuals around the world to donate generously to Haiti, and brought many governments to open their treasuries to help, despite the economic problems confronting the world. We need to ensure that the money raised is spent quickly, spent wisely, and spent effectively if we are to minimise the consequence of this impending public health catastrophe. MercyCorps are about to start a push to provide clean water and latrines for around 45-50,000 people, and other NGOs are doing similar work in other sectors, but the urgency can hardly be overstated. Good sanitation saves lives.