CARHA is one of the ministries we support in Haiti
| Greetings to you all in the name of Jesus! |
Word from our Orphanage Partner Paints a bleak Picture with Cholera
Please pray that this epidemic gets under control as health authorities do not feel it has peaked yet. Your prayers and donations are needed as God leads you.
Prayerfully, Ken
Sickness in Haiti Continues!
HELP THE CHILDREN OF HAITI!
Please fervently pray for Almighty God to intervene and put an end to this dreaded plague and comfort the suffering Haitian people. As you are able, please donate money for needed medical treatment, clean water and sanitation technology, which would be used to literally save precious lives. Haiti is out of time...they need a miracle...can you help? We would welcome any tax deductable donation to ww.HopeForFamiliesCharity.org and specify “For Haiti Disaster Relief”. One Hundred Percent of all such donations made to our 501C(3) IRS registered Hope for Families Charity Inc. will directly go to Haiti to aid those suffering people! We will deeply appreciate any assistance you could offer and we will have pictures and information posted on our websites to track our humanitarian efforts in Haiti.
Yours for the welfare of children,
Dr. Kenneth N. Brown LMFT
Haiti Adoption
Would you prayerfully consider adopting children from Haiti to save them from ongoing disasters of earthquake, poverty, hurricane and plague! We anticipate by the time the legal work is done for the adoption, that this terrible cholera outbreak will be contained and under control. Our orphanage is in the south end of Haiti in a city called Jacmel. This area has generally a higher standard of living with better septic and water supplies, and to date, there is no cholera outbreak in this area. We reasonably hope that the cholera epidemic in the northern part of Haiti will not impact this region or significantly delay any adoption. Please call us on our cell 772-538-4112 for more information about adopting from Haiti. (See www.HopeForHaitisOrphans.org for details about the requirements, time line, costs and process of adopting from Haiti.) I hope that the information that follows will help you to understand the desperate nature of this latest health crisis.
Update on Haiti Cholera Epidemic as of November 17, 2010
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is still recovering from the earthquake that caused $7.8 billion in damage and crippled the nation's government. Then a cholera outbreak which originated last month in the Artibonite River valley (which wasn't severely damaged by the earthquake) has multiplied into an epidemic. The Artibonite region in the northwest has been the hardest hit, with over 600 recorded deaths. Conditions were aggravated dramatically earlier this month when Hurricane Tomas brought heavy rains which caused rivers to burst their banks, including the Artibonite River, which is believed to be the conduit of the disease and quite possibly spread the infection.
As of today, the Haitian Cholera outbreak has killed 1,110 people, with more than 18,000 people sick, according to the Haitian Health Ministry's website and an average of 50 people a day are dying. There is more than 14,600 hospitalized cases since the outbreak began more than three weeks ago in the Western Hemisphere's poorest state. The United Nations health experts forecast up to 270,000 Haitians could contract cholera within a year as the outbreak extends across the country of nearly 10 million, and says $163.9 million in aid is needed over the next year to combat the epidemic. Of Haiti's 10 provinces, six now have been touched by the cholera epidemic according to the health ministry. At least 27 of the deaths were recorded in the teeming capital Port-au-Prince, including its largest slum Cite Soleil and its suburbs.
Pugliese said that with the combination of the cholera epidemic and the earthquake that killed 300,000 people leaving 1.3 million people homeless in January, "people become vulnerable and are easily manipulated." Now there is rioting in front of the UN Stations in Cap Haitien some 165 miles north of the capital because Haitians believe that the cholera was accidentally brought to Haiti by the UN Nepal relief workers. Cholera was previously unknown in Haiti for centuries and after UN analysis, the particularly strain of cholera is apparently from south Asia.
Despite the cholera outbreak, which has stretched relief agencies and complicated the faltering U.N.-led recovery following the earthquake, presidential and legislative elections are scheduled to go ahead as planned on November 28. It is hoped that the civil unrest will not spread and prevent the elections.
The UN and Haiti's government are countering the unrest with an education campaign including hourly radio messages about how to prevent the spread of cholera and a six-hour program yesterday. Mobile phone text messages and loudspeakers in camps for the 1.3 million people displaced by the earthquake also are being used.
The UN last week issued an appeal for $160 million in aid to deal with the epidemic and state that the number of cases will increase "significantly" in coming days. Although most of those treated already have been released, but a wave of new infections is swamping understaffed and ill-prepared hospitals and clinics across the country.
Officials fear the scale of the epidemic could increase exponentially if cholera infiltrates makeshift camps in Port-au-Prince where hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors live in cramped and unsanitary conditions. Epidemiologists predict the outbreak could last for months and say the entire nation of almost 10 million people is at risk because they have no immunity to cholera.
The United Nations warned that Haiti is facing one of the most severe outbreaks of the disease in the past 100 years. It appealed to international donors for $164 million in aid and said it anticipates as over a quarter of a million people or 1/40th of the entire population, to be sickened with cholera over the next six to 12 months. The fatality rate can be greatly lowered with proper early medical treatment and simple 5 sanitation measures can literally prevent the spread of the disease if they can be implemented in time, but will take enormous effort and resources. (See http://www.cdc.gov/haiticholera/five_messages.htm.)
Note: The Center for Disease Control has also issued a Travel Warning at this time for the protection of the relief workers: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/content/id/2487.aspx
Cholera Epidemic Outbreak in Haiti
HAITI-CHOLERA Oct-22-2010
Death toll mounts as cholera outbreak confirmed in rural Haiti
By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Haitian President Rene Preval confirmed that an outbreak of cholera caused the deaths of at least 169 people and severe diarrhea and dehydration in 2,000 others in central Haiti within 72 hours.
The confirmation Oct. 22 came after clergy in rural communities in the Antibonite department started seeing the illness and reported their concerns to aid workers.
Scientists from the Pan American Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta continued testing water and food samples to confirm Preval's announcement and determine how the disease suddenly appeared.
Aid workers were taking steps to stop the outbreak from spreading from communities in southern Antibonite to other parts of the country. Thousands of people fled to the region after the country's devastating earthquake in January.
Water, hygiene kits and antibiotics were being trucked into the area by aid agencies. Daniel Rouzier of Food for the Poor told Catholic News Service from Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, that his agency sent five water filtration systems into the area Oct. 22 and planned to send five more the next day.
Information about the disease's symptoms and prevention tips was passed on to people.
The effort was aimed at preventing the disease from reaching vulnerable tent camps in the earthquake-battered capital and surrounding communities, about two hours south of where the outbreak erupted. More than 1.3 million people continue to live in flimsy tents and under tarps in some 1,350 camps with little access to clean water and no place for human waste.
Cholera is a water-borne bacterial disease that causes severe vomiting and diarrhea. Left untreated, it can kill a person within hours of the onset of symptoms because of dehydration. The disease can be treated with fluids and antibiotics. People who receive treatment quickly usually survive.
Deacon Rodrigue Mortel, director of the Missions Office for the Archdiocese of Baltimore who runs a mission program in his hometown of St. Marc, Haiti, told CNS Oct. 22 that St. Nicholas Hospital there was filled to capacity with patients exhibiting cholera symptoms.
He said the disease appeared to be spreading.
"There are many outbreaks in many places that were not affected as of yesterday," Deacon Mortel said Oct. 22. "There are other places where this has been found.
"They don't know (how it started)," he added. "We know where it started but not what triggered it."
Deacon Mortel's sister lives in St. Marc, and he said she described how prevention efforts have taken priority at Good Samaritan School, where 600 students are enrolled.
A spokeswoman for Catholic Relief Services in Haiti said agency officials were meeting with representatives of other nongovernment organizations Oct. 22 to chart a response.
Robyn Fieser, regional information office for CRS, said the agency will be "beefing up hygiene efforts" in the camps housing homeless earthquake victims with follow-up steps to be determined.
Rouzier said that on Oct. 19, his agency began receiving concerned calls from priests and pastors in Antibonite who reported that dozens of ill people were seeking assistance. He said water sources in the region were often shared by humans and animals.
The government has warned Haitians to avoid eating seafood, shellfish and raw vegetables and to cook meat thoroughly.
About 1 million people live in the plateau area affected by the outbreak, the first in Haiti since the 1960s.
Adoptions are in progress
Mayson of one of the most recent orphans in Haiti. He is one of many many more that need a permanent home. We are happy to report we are actively processing adoptions from Haiti as of today, August 7,2010. We have several families that are currently in the process and our local Haitian attorney is assisting those families in the preparation of their dossier and paperwork in anticipation of adoption. We have over 100 children in our Jacmel orphanage that are currently eligible for adoption and we are uniquely positioned to work through the local authorities in Haiti to get these adoptions fully completed. Please give us a call or contact us if you have any interest in adopting an orphan from Haiti. Blessings!