May 25, 2016 The Skanner Page 9
News
Concern in Haiti Over Emerging Condition Linked to Zika
Haiti’s health ministry has reported no cases of microcephaly but 11 cases of Guillian-Barre syndrome
DAVID McFADDEN,
Associated Press
AP PHOTO/DIEU NALIO CHERY
MIREBALAIS, Haiti —
Berny Saint-Sauveur was
moaning and incoher-
ent when his family car-
ried him into a hospital
in central Haiti. He was
unable to move, he later
found out, because of an
unusual paralysis syn-
drome linked to the mos-
quito-borne Zika virus.
“I thought I was a dead
man,” Saint-Sauveur re-
called in an interview
from his hospital bed,
wearily rubbing blood-
shot eyes.
ready being completely
under-resourced to deal
with any developmental
challenge a child has?”
asked Dr. Louise Ivers, a
senior health and policy
adviser for Boston-based
Partners in Health.
Haiti announced its
first cases of Zika on Jan.
15.
By April 23, there were
2,214 suspected cases,
the number of accompa-
nying neurological dis-
orders is a big unknown.
“Haiti is a bit of a black
box and I’m not sure
anyone has their arms
around what’s really
happening
currently,”
said Dr. Peter Hotez,
dean of the National
School of Tropical Medi-
cine at Baylor College of
Medicine in Texas.
Even after the worst
cholera epidemic in re-
cent history, Haiti’s se-
verely under-resourced
health sector still does
not have routine data
collection systems that
In this May 21 photo, a vendor combs another woman’s hair
next to a water canal full of rubbish, fertile ground for mosquito-
borne diseases, near a street market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Haiti’s government has stepped up fumigation and public service
announcements about the importance of getting rid of mosquito
breeding grounds, but mosquito control is minimal compared to more
developed nations.
After two weeks, the
46-year-old rice farm-
er was recovering from
the nervous system
illness known as Guil-
lain-Barre and about to
be discharged from the
hospital in Mirebalais.
Doctors and scientists,
meanwhile, are bracing
for the possibility of a
wave of rare disorders
triggered by Zika in an
impoverished country
that has faced one public
health crisis after anoth-
er and is fertile ground
for
mosquito-borne
scourges.
Zika causes mild symp-
toms such as rash and
fever in most people, but
when Brazil reported
outbreaks for the first
time last year, doctors
saw a dramatic increase
in Guillain-Barre and a
severe birth defect called
microcephaly resulting
in infants with abnor-
mally small heads. The
World Health Organi-
zation says there is now
scientific consensus that
Zika is a cause of both
disorders.
Haiti’s health ministry
has reported no cases
of microcephaly but 11
cases of Guillain-Barre,
including two definitive-
ly linked to Zika by lab
tests. But the extent of
Haiti’s Zika outbreak and
would allow experts to
track and document dis-
ease outbreaks across
one of the world’s poor-
est countries.
Frontline physicians in
Haiti say the assumption
is that the uptick of Guil-
lain-Barre cases is due to
Zika because it coincides
with the spreading ep-
idemic. The WHO says
Guillain-Barre reports
have increased in 13
countries or territories
where Zika is circulating.
“Since around the fall
of 2015 we began seeing
cases of Guillain-Barre
that we had not seen
prior to that point,” said
Dr. Nessa Meshkaty, an
infectious disease physi-
cian working in the Part-
ners in Health hospital in
Mirebalais.
Some experts worry a
relatively large number
of microcephaly cases
could hit Haiti later this
year when women infect-
ed in early 2016 start giv-
ing birth.
Health experts are try-
ing to figure out what, if
anything, they can do to
prepare other than train-
ing staff to look out for
symptoms.
“What are we going
to do in Haiti if we have
an epidemic of children
with developmental de-
lays in the context of al-
including 12 among preg-
nant women, according
to the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Pre-
vention.
By comparison, Puer-
to Rico, a U.S. Caribbean
island which has a third
of Haiti’s population
and is located about 380
miles (600 kilometers)
to the east, has had 925
confirmed cases of Zika,
including one related
death and a case of mi-
crocephaly in a fetus.
The neighboring Do-
minican Republic has
seen roughly 100 cases of
Guillain-Barre, includ-
ing six recent fatalities.
The syndrome kills
about one in 20 patients.
New research suggest-
ing that the Zika virus
has been present in Haiti
since 2014 adds a layer of
complexity to the epide-
miological mystery.
Dr. John Lednicky, a re-
searcher at the Universi-
ty of Florida’s Emerging
Pathogens Institute, was
part of a team that found
Zika in the plasma of
three Haitian youngsters
some two years before
Haiti announced its first
cases.