Despite what the authorities of the Ministry of Health said, the analysis of figures provided by the Haitian government does not correspond to the "reassuring" words diffused daily since Saturday, October 23, 2010 (1st official assessment) and October 30, 2010 last assessment available. We can only conclude, on reading these figures, that the number of people infected and hospitalized rose by 210.52% and 173.71% of deaths.

The average rate of deaths on the number of people infected (recognized cases) (1) between October 24 (assessment # 1) and October 30 (assessment # 8) is of 7.42 %, a rate abnormally high if one refers to the figures released by WHO. In 2008, about 56 countries (190.130 cases reported) 5.143 deaths reported (2.7% morality rate). WHO estimates on its website that the real between assessment of cholera in the world, amounting to 3 to 5 million cases and between 100,000 and 120,000 deaths per year (a mortality rate between 2.4 and 3.33%).

Given these figures, mortality rate of cholera in Haiti is of 2.24 to 3.09 times higher than average numbers of deaths from WHO, without knowing why.

Official assessment - Haitian government figures (2)

Saturday, October 23, 2010 (Official assessment # 1)

2,364 contaminated and hospitalized people

194 people deceased (8.2 %)

Sunday, October 24, 2010 (Official assessment # 2)

3,115 contaminated and hospitalized people

253 people deceased (8.12 %)

Monday, October 25, 2010 (Official assessment # 3)

3,342 contaminated and hospitalized people

259 people deceased (7.74 %)

Tuesday, October 26, 2010 (Official assessment # 4)

3,612 contaminated and hospitalized people

284 people deceased (7.86 %)

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 (Official assessment # 5)

4,147 contaminated and hospitalized people

292 people deceased (7.04 %)

Thursday, October 28, 2010 (Official assessment # 6)

4,649 contaminated and hospitalized people

305 people deceased (6.56 %)

Friday, October 29, 2010 (Official assessment # 7)

4,714 contaminated and hospitalized people

330 people deceased (7.00 %)

Saturday, October 30, 2010 (Official assessment # 8)

4,764 contaminated and hospitalized people

337 people deceased (7.07 %)

The analysis of these figures enables us to note a deceleration in the increase amongst infected people. Deceleration, due to the positive effects of health resources in place, but could come from an increasingly long delay between the suspected cases reported and their confirmations. Indeed, it is not uncommon that runs 4, 5 days, or even more, before a suspect case is confirmed, especially if this case is outside Artibonite and Plateau Central (the suspected case are not in the assessment published). A deadline difficult to explain, on a strictly medical level... As the average rate of mortality, it is practically constant since October 23 over the number of reported cases.

(1) The percentage of deaths were calculated for each assessment published on the total number of people infected versus the total number of deaths reported.

(2) Figures released by the Ministry of Health refer to previous data from 24 to 48 hours (minimum) and are never the actual figures of the day.

HL / HaitiLibre