Natural disasters
On September 18, 2004, according to bridgat, Hurricane Jeanne reached Haiti. A week later, the non-final balance was more than 1160 people dead and another 1,250 missing. The effects of this storm aggravated the country’s already difficult living conditions, leaving 170,000 people without food or water.
On January 12, 2010, it suffered a devastating earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, the most severe in the country in 200 years. The epicenter of the earthquake was near the capital Port-au-Prince. It has been estimated that the death toll reached 300,000 people and more than 3 million were affected and has placed its population in a situation of practically absolute defenselessness, this has once again served as a pretext for the United States to send thousands of soldiers to the island. While other countries – such as Cuba and the ALBA nations – have deployed hundreds of doctors and are making an effort to collaborate with the Haitian government to face the situation.
The Presidential Palace was badly affected, collapsing the second floor on top of the first, the Parliament building, the United Nations office and the National Cathedral were also damaged. The new headquarters of the Government of Haiti will be built in the Croix-des-bouquets area about 20 kilometers from Port-au-Prince.
Cholera epidemic
In October 2010, a violent cholera epidemic began to break out in the urban area of Mirebalais, with 86,000 residents. On Saturday , October 15, the first 3 patients with diarrheal symptoms and acute dehydration were admitted. The Cuban Medical Mission urgently sent a group of epidemiology specialists who took samples of blood, vomit, feces and data, which were urgently sent to the national laboratories of Haiti.
On October 22, it was reported that the isolated strain corresponded to the one prevalent in Asia and Oceania, which is the most severe. Violent disturbances developed throughout the country, as the population accused the MINUSTAH forces of transmitting cholera in the country through a Nepalese soldier, which was later demonstrated [12] . The AFP news agency reported verbatim that:
“Renowned French epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux led an investigation in Haiti last month and concluded that the epidemic was caused by an imported strain, and spread from the Nepalese MINUSTAH base.”
By January 2011, more than 194,000 Haitians had been infected with the disease, of whom about 4,000 had died [13] . The disease crossed the border with the Dominican Republic that same month, when the nation bordering Haiti reported the first death and more than 200 cases of contagion [14] . From the moment the epidemic broke out in Haiti, the Dominican government took a group of measures highly criticized by the Haitian government, which it considered violated the rights of its nationals. Among them, the massive deportation of Haitians, the search in public places, the prohibition of using public transport and the forced separation of relatives [15] .
The disease continued to cross borders when on January 22, a group of Venezuelans who attended a party in Pedernales, in the Dominican Republic, near the border with Haiti, became infected and consumed lobster contaminated with the virus. On January 30 the health authorities of Venezuela announced that 135 of its nationals were being treated for the disease [16] .
The cholera epidemic until April infected about 300,000 people in addition to causing almost 5,000 deaths, according to figures from the Ministry of Health of that country [17] .
Humanitarian aid from Cuba in Haiti
When the earthquake of January 12, 2010, devastated Haiti, Cuban doctors had been there for more than 10 years. And when the international humanitarian aid show ended, the Cubans continued there. On the importance of Cuban aid to Haiti, the Haitian Prime Minister, Jean Max Bellerive, expressed in an interview with Cuban television on February 18, 2011:
“We know that Cuba is not a rich country, that it has its problems, but that it wants to share what it has with Haiti. What it has most is technical capacity and an immense heart” [18]
Jean max bellerive
In March 2011, the Cuban Medical Brigade had reduced the lethality of the cholera epidemic to 0.38% in the 67 medical units under its responsibility in the country. The small Cuban mobile units, made up of doctors and nurses, had visited more than 1.3 million people in sub-communes with very difficult access since the beginning of the epidemic, most of them in mountainous regions. In addition to treating the patient and his family, they carried out other health education activities and the distribution of chlorine tablets for drinking water, in order to cut the chain of transmission.
