MIAMI — The first known case of cholera in the United States linked to the outbreak in Haiti was confirmed Wednesday by health officials who said a southwest Florida woman contracted the disease while visiting family in a region at the heart of Haiti’s epidemic.
The Florida Department of Health was investigating several suspected cases of the disease elsewhere in the state. They were not believed to be connected to the verified patient, who sought treatment this month at a hospital emergency room in Collier County. The woman spent five days in the hospital after developing diarrhea and dehydration, classic symptoms of cholera, following her return from Haiti, where she had spent time in the Artibonite region. She is expected to recover fully.
“We are lucky in the state of Florida, and the U.S. generally, to have a very sound infrastructure for our food, water and sewage,” said Rob Hayes, spokesman for the Florida Department of Health. “With that in place, and with our aggressive public health practices, we are not concerned about this being a significant public health threat.” The arrival of cholera in Florida had been considered inevitable for a state that is home to at least 250,000 people of Haitian descent — large numbers of whom travel to and from the island nation — and a jumping-off point for aid workers.
Travel has increased since a deadly earthquake in January flattened parts of Port-au-Prince and left an estimated 1.3 million people homeless, necessitating huge aid efforts from overseas. Last week, the Florida Department of Health issued an advisory to medical professionals alerting them to the symptoms of cholera and urging swift testing and early treatment.
Yet unlike in Haiti, where access to clean water is limited and sanitation services largely absent, conditions in the United States are not considered conducive to a wide-scale spread of the disease. Cholera is typically spread through water or food that is contaminated by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. In an epidemic, the source is usually the feces of an infected person.
“One should never say, ‘No problem, no big deal, forget about it,’ because that looks cavalier,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “But in order for cholera to be a threat to the general public there has to be both a source and conditions conducive to the propagation of the disease. “Though we shouldn’t be careless, it’s extremely unlikely — vanishingly unlikely — that we will have a cholera problem in Florida,” Dr. Fauci said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/us/18florida.html
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