The disease ran rampant, and continues to run rampant across Haiti because the country’s sanitation system, or more accurately because of its LACK of a decent sanitation system. Without a way to properly process (disinfect/sanitize) human waste, the vessel by which cholera and many other diseases spread, that waste can easily find its way into water supplies where it has the opportunity to infect many more people.

Sounds nasty, but that grim story has existed as a harsh reality for the residents of Haiti and other areas we in the United States and other ‘Western’ countries have labeled as ‘Third World’.

The disease was originally endemic to the Indian subcontinent, particularly around the Ganges river. Trade routes by land and sea helped spread it to Russia, then to western Europe, then America during the Irish immigration period. Cholera is no longer considered a pressing health threat in Europe and North America due to filtering and chlorination of water supplies, but still heavily affects developing countries. ( source )

Stopping the spread of cholera and other diseases

Several people have come forward and blamed the Haitian government and a number of emergency relief agencies for not having enough medicines and vaccines to properly treat those who have already contracted chlorera. We think those people’s words have some merit, but not much.

The real problem lies with Haiti’s inferior sanitation and clean water distribution system. The disease normally spreads through contaminated drinking water so… instead of treating the problem after-the-fact, action needs to get taken on the front end where initial contamination occurs — and that means stopping the flow of infection waste into the water supply.

Advanced water purification and sewage systems mean the developed world no longer faces a major threat from cholera. The disposal and sterilisation of anything that may be infected is an important way of stopping its spread. ( source )

We do not have all the answers

Now before anyone gets on their high horse and asks, “Well do you know how to stop the flow of infectious waste into the Third World’s water supply?” No… No, we do not. We do know, however, that the answer lies in clean water because fewer people getting infected will, in the end, mean fewer people having the ability to spread the disease.

Since digging up all of Haiti or any other Third World country and installing proper sanitation systems would cost far more than anyone would want to pay, we suspect the solution will have to come from making safe, clean drinking water available to the masses.

Simplicity… a beautiful thing

In a country like Haiti where power lines may or may not reach many areas and the power may or may not always flow through the lines if they do exist, obviously more complex, powered water purification systems such as ultraviolet disinfection (which require power) could prove useless at the times when people might need them most.

About a month ago we talked about a series of gravity feed filters made by Doulton that use special ceramic filters to remove/reduce levels of potentially harmful Cysts (i.e. Cryptosporidium, Giardia, etc.), Particulates (i.e. Rust & Sediment Creating Turbidity), and Bacteria (i.e. E. Cholera, E. Coli, Typhoid, Shigella, Klebsiella Terrigena, etc.).

Today we’d like to offer a different gravity ceramic filter system for your consideration. This one, the Katadyn Ceradyn Drip Water Filter System uses three Katadyn ceramic depth filters remove bacteria, cysts, algae, protozoa, sediment, dirt, spores, some viruses, and other disease causing agents… down to the 0.2 micron level.

Made from BPA-free plastic and capable of producing roughly 1 gallon of filtered water per hour, Katadyn claims each Katadyn Ceradyn Drip Water Filter System has a life expectancy of 40,000 gallons.

What does that mean in the real world? Quite simply, it means that a household or village could set up a Katadyn Ceradyn Drip Water Filter System and continually feed it source water for a period of roughly 4 1/2 years and get one gallon of vastly improved drinking water each and every hour during that time.

Within that time period the individual three advanced Katadyn ceramic depth filters (20743) in the Katadyn Ceradyn Drip Water Filter System will need replacing every 13,000 gallons. But still… If used non-stop, that equals more than 500 days of continuous clean water production without need to change a filter!

I read about cholera back in school and how it once ravages the US, or what they called the US back in the… 1800’s(?). Been a while since I was in school, though, so I don’t remember if they said it was something we needed to worry about anymore — and after the H1N1 panic/hype/scare/whatever I don’t know if I believe the news media these days when it comes to stuff like this. Should I be worried about cholera affecting me and my family?

We suppose that since cholera can pass from person to person via contaminated drinking water that we ought to address this matter. We can do so by saying that cholera has almost disappeared from the country entirely and doctors in the US confirmed only 61 cases between 1994 and 2000… with 37 of those cases originating from exposure to the virus overseas. ( source )

How does cholera spread?

The strands of cholera that make people sick typically reside in the intestines of warm-blooded mammals — in this case humans — and easily pass from an infected person’s body as the body loses large amounts of fluids in the form of diarrhea. In severe cases an infected person can lose massive amounts of fluids in a very short amount of time and in areas lacking proper sanitation (bathrooms, sinks for hand washing, etc.) the contaminated fluids have ample opportunity to get picked up by unsuspecting future victims.

Preventing cholera?

Since we already told you that very few cases of cholera have popped up in the US, and the news currently reports an outbreak in Haiti, a country known for not having proper sanitation for its very poor population, one COULD single out Haiti as the place to avoid, but in fact other countries, mostly ‘Third World’ countries, also experience problems with cholera from time to time — just not on as widespread a scale as we see in Haiti right now.

In all honesty, the same basic advice that travelers from the US have received before going abroad for many years can help keep them from becoming contaminated:

• Do not drink water whose origin you cannot verify, meaning do not drink water you have not boiled and/or treated with a disinfectant such as chlorine or iodine. test for chlorine, test for iodine
• Drinking beverages made with boiled water (such as tea and coffee) will usually pose little risk — as long as you do not add ice for any reason or use poorly cleaned or improperly washed cups/glasses. Carbonated beverages from sealed containers also usually do not pose much risk.
• Avoid raw foods and foods not thoroughly cooked, lukewarm or cold foods, and fruits/vegetables you have not peeled yourself.
• Undercooked or raw fish and shellfish… avoid them.
• Salads… avoid them. You do not know if the water used to wash the vegetables got boiled before use.
• Foods and beverages from street vendors… avoid them.

• Avoid taking perishable goods such as fruit, vegetables, meats, seafood items, etc. home with you.

Precautions to take here at home in the US?

Most importantly, we suggest WASHING YOUR DARN HANDS AFTER YOU USE THE BATHROOM! We all have seen people leaving the restroom in a public place w/o washing their hands. Nasty cretins! The fact that you didn’t think you had any spreadable diseases before entering the restroom does NOT mean you didn’t possibly pick one up while in there in as you opened the door, opened the stall door, flushed the toilet, etc., etc.

If enough people leave the bathroom w/o washing their hands eventually some infectious critter will get loose in the general public… and make everyone sick. Stop and wash your hands. It doesn’t take that long!

Worried about touching the door handle as you leave the bathroom and getting germs on your hand(s)? They sell portable bottles of hand sanitizer all over the place these days and they don’t cost a lot of money — so you have no reason not to carry one on your person or have one at your desk/workstation.

Getting back to cholera and drinking water?

Without a means of introduction into the water supply (ahem… wash your hands!) the disease cannot get too far in the US — and even then most water systems use highly effective disinfectants like chlorine and iodine to keep potentially harmful bacteria at bay and in check.