Problem

submitted by John Carroll

reliefweb.int - September 21, 2018

A. Situation analysis

Description of the disaster

During Epidemiological Week (EW) 28, the Ministry of Public Health and Epidemiology reported that the Los Pinos Health Center (La Descubierta, municipality) saw an increase in the number of patients with acute diarrhoeal diseases from surrounding communities, which were suspected to be cases of cholera.

In EW 32, the Ministry of Health reported that Vibrio cholerae had been identified in samples collected from residents of La Descubierta municipality in the National Public Health Laboratory. The same report also stated that three confirmed cases of cholera in the municipality had been identified.

Since the outbreak began in EW 28 and up to EW 34, 4 confirmed cases of cholera and 91 suspected cases have been identified in the municipality (please see Figure 1 below), in residents of Los Pinos del Edén, Ángel Feliz, urban area of La Descubierta and Los Bolos.

Maria Jesus Lopez shows a corn ear in a drought-affected farm near the town of San Marcos Lempa, El Salvador, July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

Central America is one of the regions most vulnerable to extreme weather linked to climate change

Thomson Reuters Foundation - news.trust.org - by Anastasia Moloney - September 7, 2018

Poor harvests caused by drought in parts of Central America could leave more than two million people hungry, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday, warning climate change was creating drier conditions in the region.

Lower than average rainfall in June and July has led to major crop losses for small-scale maize and bean farmers in Central America's "Dry Corridor", which runs through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

This means subsistence farmers will not have enough food to eat or sell in the coming months, and have no food supplies to see them through the lean time between harvests.

CLICK HERE - STUDY - PNAS - Seroprevalence, risk factor, and spatial analyses of Zika virus infection after the 2016 epidemic in Managua, Nicaragua

sph.berkeley.edu - August 30, 2018

Almost half of the population of Managua, Nicaragua, is infected with Zika virus, according to a study by UC Berkeley School of Public Health researchers. Eva Harris, professor of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at the School of Public Health and director of the UC Berkeley Center for Global Public Health, led the research, which was published August 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Knowing that 50 percent of the population was infected in only a three-month period during the epidemic is important because it means that another epidemic of that size and ferocity in the near future is very unlikely,” says Harris.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Health workers attending to an H7N9 avian flu patient in Wuhan, China, in 2017. CreditCreditAgence France-Presse -- Getty Images

CLICK HERE - WHO - Pandemic influenza preparedness Framework for the sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits (68 page .PDF document)

Despite an international agreement, U.S. health authorities still have not received H7N9 avian flu specimens from their Chinese counterparts.

nytimes.com - by Emily Baumgaertner - August 27, 2018

For over a year, the Chinese government has withheld lab samples of a rapidly evolving influenza virus from the United States — specimens needed to develop vaccines and treatments, according to federal health officials.

Despite persistent requests from government officials and research institutions, China has not provided samples of the dangerous virus, a type of bird flu called H7N9. In the past, such exchanges have been mostly routine under rules established by the World Health Organization.