How disease takes root

Dear Friends,

The Partners In Health team in Haiti, Zanmi Lasante, continues to respond to the cholera outbreak, as hundreds of critically ill patients arrive every day at the Ministry of Health facilities we support.

To treat the large volume of patients ill with cholera who continue streaming into the clinics, and to ensure high-quality care 24 hours a day, we are rapidly hiring additional Haitian doctors and nurses. Prevention through community outreach remains key to containing the epidemic. PIH/ZL is bolstering its force of more than 2,000 community health workers - including those in the camps we serve in Port-au-Prince - with training in hygiene and infection control. Community health workers are also being supplied with the tools to prevent infection, such as soap and water purification tablets, as well as oral rehydration salts for treatment of early symptoms.

And despite focused efforts, Zanmi Lasante and other organizations remain concerned about access to clean water, both in Port-au-Prince where conditions of overcrowding and squalor continue, and in rural communities where rivers and rain runoff are the only available water sources.

This cholera outbreak is a tragic example of how disease takes root in poor communities, an example that reinforces PIH's deep commitment to treating the sick while simultaneously working to address basic rights such as water, housing and sanitation. It is work carried out and constantly improved by engaging people who themselves are suffering these indignities, and by forging a bond of solidarity and support between them and others who understand this grass roots approach to addressing health and its social determinants.

Our mission is not simply to respond to these crises but to work toward averting them through an approach rooted in solidarity and assuring human dignity. That's why PIH exists, and why I work here. It's why you support this organization.

Please donate now to help PIH respond to this cholera outbreak in Haiti and to support our efforts around the world.

In the short term, our goal is to treat the victims of the outbreak in Haiti and halt its rapid spread.

Over the long term, however, our vision is that a cholera outbreak will be just as unheard of anywhere around the world as it is in the United States today, that high-quality health care and water security will not be considered luxuries but rather basic rights.

Help us achieve this vision, make a donation now.

In solidarity,

Joia Mukherjee
Chief Medical Officer
Partners In Health