Haitian Cholera Vaccination Pilot Project Temporarily Postponed, NPR Reports

“A long-planned project to find out whether vaccination is feasible in the midst of an ongoing cholera outbreak in Haiti has been stymied — temporarily, its proponents insist –” after “a Port-au-Prince radio station reported that the impending vaccination effort was actually a ‘medical experiment on the Haitian people’ — a potentially incendiary charge,” NPR’s health blog “Shots” reports.

“The Haitian Ministry of Health scrambled to counter that report, which apparently arose from a mix-up that occurred during last year’s change of government,” according to NPR, which explains the previous government “opposed cholera vaccination.” The sponsoring organizations, Partners In Health (PIH) and GHESKIO, have submitted new proposals to the government for review, which “proponents hope … can be accelerated,” the news service notes. Officials with PIH and GHESKIO are “confident the vaccination campaign will go ahead sometime later this month,” according to NPR. The blog also contains a link to NPR’s “Morning Edition,” which included an interview on Tuesday with health correspondent Richard Knox about the cholera vaccine and other health issues in Haiti (Knox, 3/13).

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