Santo Domingo, 27 Jan. A trickle of neighbors, slow but constant, goes this Friday to one of the cholera vaccination posts installed in La Zurza, a sector on the banks of the Isabela River, in Santo Domingo, where the most cases of the disease have been reported since it was detected last October.
Mothers with several children, young people and adults from the area come to be administered the oral solution against cholera, a disease for which a total of 36 infections have been reported in the country, according to the latest figures from the health authorities.
For Pedro Mireles, risk manager for Area IV of Public Health, the fact that the vaccine is not injected encourages the population to go to get immunized, both at this mobile hospital set up when the first cases were learned and at two others recently opened positions.
“It’s not pullao, it’s to drink!” says one of the people who collaborates in the process, encouraging his neighbors to get immunized at the point located next to a pool frequented by the residents of the humble neighborhood and in which people bathe every day, despite recommendations to the contrary.
Fortunately, “La Zurza is now free of cholera, it is fully controlled and we have no suspicious cases,” Mireles told EFE, who along with the rest of the team continues to monitor and guide residents in the area.
The cholera vaccination campaign began last Wednesday, after the arrival this week of a first batch of 85,000 doses from Korea, purchased thanks to the support of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
In La Zurza, as in Villa Liberación, where outbreaks of the disease were detected, the Ministry of Public Health is immunizing, on average, the epidemiological fence of ten houses near the place where infections have been registered.
Likewise, action is being taken in the entire border area with Haiti, especially vulnerable since in the neighboring country the disease has caused 511 deaths and 1,938 cases have been confirmed out of a total of 25,803 suspects since cholera reappeared there less than four months ago. according to the latest official data.
People with comorbidities in places where outbreaks have been discovered are also a priority target, as are health personnel who assist affected or suspected persons, Public Health workers who participate in field and laboratory investigations, military personnel, and the prison population.
The Dominican Republic confirmed the first case of cholera last October, corresponding to a 32-year-old woman of Haitian nationality who had then returned from the neighboring country, and the second case detected was that of a child from the same origin. EFE
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