Government says cholera cases jump from 85 to 110, but outbreak remains under control

Posted on Thursday, 07.12.12

Government says cholera cases jump from 85 to 110, but outbreak remains
under control

Dissident in eastern city of Santiago de Cuba says government is hiding
eight cholera deaths
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuban public health officials say the number of confirmed cholera cases
has risen from 85 to 100 and advised residents of the worst-hit area,
the southeastern province of Granma, to avoid traveling.

Meanwhile, a dissident journalist in Santiago de Cuba, the island's
second largest city, reported that hospital workers there told him eight
people had died from cholera in Santiago hospitals.

Cuba's government has officially confirmed only three cholera deaths and
claimed the water-borne disease has turned up in only a few cases
outside its focus in Granma province.

Granma epidemiologist Ana Maria Batista reported on provincial
television Tuesday that the number of confirmed cases of cholera stood
at 110, an increase of 25 from the 85 that she reported on Monday.

She added that general cases of diarrhea and vomiting, the symptoms of
cholera, rose by 308 to 4,415 and those hospitalized with similar
symptoms dropped from 112 to 81, according to doctor and dissident
Santiago Marquez.

Batista also repeated her claim that the outbreak was under control but
advised Granma residents to avoid unnecessary travel and avert the
further spread of the disease, said Marquez, a resident of the
provincial city of Manzanillo.

Batista's reports on CNC Granma television every night since Saturday
have been the lone official comments on the outbreak since a brief
government statement July 3 confirmed the three cholera deaths.
Dissidents have reported five to 15 dead.

Independent journalist Walter Clavel reported Tuesday that five adults
and three children had died from the disease in Santiago, but that
authorities had told doctors they could "put anything except cholera on
their death certificates."

There was no way to independently confirm the information that Clavel
said he obtained from hospital employees who looked at admittance and
morgue ledgers, although his report seemed unusually detailed.

One person died July 6 and another the next day, he told El Nuevo
Herald. Two elderly women died July 9 and 10, and the last victim was
Juan Solis, 69. The three children were transferred from Manzanillo to
Santiago's pediatric hospital.

Doctors and nurses at the hospital have asked for a meeting with Lazaro
Exposito, the Communist Party chief for Santiago province, to complain
that the transfer risked spreading cholera to other children, according
to Clavel.

Clavel said he telephoned Exposito, who told him that there were two
confirmed cases in Santiago. Exposito apparently thought he was speaking
to a government official.

The 30-year-old Clavel said he was fired from a state agency that hires
out musicians and other artists after he criticized the government. He
now writes for the independent Eastern Free Press Agency.

Havana blogger Yohandry Fontana, believed to be a pseudonym for a
government security official, reported Wednesday that health officials
insisted the outbreak was limited to Granma and that no cholera cases at
all had been reported in Havana.

Venezuela's Ministry of Health, meanwhile, joined Mexico, Germany and
the British-run Cayman Islands in expressing concern over the epidemic
in Cuba, saying officials there are "on alert."

Neither the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor the Pan
American Health Organization, the hemispheric arm of the World Health
Organization, have issued travel advisories on the Cuba outbreak.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/12/2891730/government-says-cholera-cases.html#comment-585088718