Reemergence of Cholera in Haiti
Daniel H. F. Rubin, Franz G. Zingl, Deborah R. Leitner, Ralph Ternier, Valusnor Compère, Samson Marseille, Damien Slater, Jason B. Harris, Fahima Chowdhury, Firdausi Qadri, Jacques Boncy, Louise C. Ivers, Matthew K. Waldor
Abstract
To the Editor: Cholera was absent from Haiti until an inadvertent introduction by United Nations security forces in October 2010. The ensuing epidemic sickened 820,000 people and caused 9792 reported deaths. 1 The last confirmed cholera case in Haiti was recorded in January 2019, and in February 2022, cholera was declared to have been eliminated in Haiti. 2 In late September 2022, a new outbreak began in Port-au-Prince and rapidly expanded to include 11,953 suspected cases by late November, more than 1000 of which were confirmed by culture. 3 We conducted a genomic and phenotypic analysis of the Vibrio cholerae isolated from a stool specimen obtained on September 30, 2022, from an index patient -a child who presented with watery diarrhea and severe dehydration -to begin to address the origins of the epidemic.