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OTTAWA — Haiti’s next survival challenge lurks in its broken pipes, tainted wells and stagnant puddles: Water. If contaminated, it will spread disease. If stagnant, it will breed malarial mosquitoes. And if there’s no water at all, dehydration and death may follow.
“People can live without food for a really long time and they can eat anything, but if you have bad water and you drink it, you get cholera, you get childhood diarrhea,” says Mia Vukojevic, humanitarian program manager for Oxfam Canada.
“A small kid in warm temperatures without water can dehydrate so quickly, you wouldn’t believe it.”
Water-borne diseases following Tuesday’s earthquake could boost the death toll by another 10 to 20% over the disaster’s initial fatalities, says Dr. Gerald Evans, president of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada. “There’s just a litany of potential infectious, contagious stuff that’s going to affect an area like that.”
Humanitarian groups from the Canadian military to Doctors Without Borders are shipping in potable water or filtration equipment as quickly as possible. They must — water-related diseases start to show up within seven to 10 days.
Stephen Brown, associate professor in the department of chemistry and school of environmental studies at Queen’s University, says “it’s times like this we realize how important water is for us.”
Without clean water, Port-au-Prince could see a spread of bacterial diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever or the parasites that cause amoebic dysentery.
It could also see an increase in malaria, since malarial mosquitoes breed in stagnant, standing water. Haiti is one of the few spots in the Caribbean with an endemic malaria problem.
What Evans calls a “mosquito explosion” could also increase dengue fever, a problem in Haiti even in normal times.
There’s also a danger of leptospirosis, if the water is tainted by dogs or other animals that wander the streets. The bacterial infection causes liver and kidney damage.
Aid groups such as Oxfam, with its focus on water, will also quickly address other sanitation needs, such as building latrines, both temporary and permanent.
If people don’t dispose of human waste or sewage properly, it “gets mixed up with water and then you get big epidemics of water-related diseases,” Vukojevic warns.
Haiti’s health challenges:
Severe injuries: Broken bones, crushing injuries, head wounds, for instance, from the quake.
Illnesses: Cholera, typhoid fever, dengue fever, dysentery, malaria, for instance, from water. Contamination from improper handling of the dead, or from animals that have come in contact with bodies. Rabies from sick animals.
Infections: Wounds that are not kept clean, post-surgical complications.
Mental health: Post-traumatic stress disorder.
Public health: Population that had poor nutrition to start with — immune-compromised people more susceptible to health problems.