When a deadly cholera epidemic struck the town of Thomazeau, Haiti, last year, a small group of people from Broward County’s Nova Southeastern University, including a public health professor, a Haitian physician who had graduated from the public health program, and students in a tropical disease class, answered the call for action.

 

Dr. Jean-Baptiste Ceme, who graduated from Nova Southeastern University in 2003 with a Master’s of Public Health degree, was born in Thomazeau, a town of 52,000 residents located northeast of Port-au-Prince. When he heard about the cholera epidemic from the town’s mayor, he started working on a proposal, and contacted his former mentor, Dr. Cyril Blavo, Director of the Masters of Public Health Program and professor of pediatrics/public health at Nova Southeastern University.

 

“Something had to be done, because people were dying,” said Dr. Ceme, who had done a health needs assessment of Thomazeau as his graduation practicum project. He later founded a non-profit organization called Haiti New Vision, Inc. to develop a Women’s Health Center in Thomazeau.

 

Dr. Ceme discussed a plan of action to control the cholera epidemic one family at a time with Dr. Blavo, who heads a small non-profit organization called International Health Initiatives, Inc. The two doctors developed a strategic plan to address the epidemic, and raised $1,000 from friends and colleagues through their two non-profit organizations.

“We had to quickly identify where the outbreak was centered, the prevailing conditions of drinking water, the sanitation status of the community, who was at the greatest risk, and how aware the community was about the problem,” said Dr. Blavo.

 

A local Thomazeau physician and a field worker volunteered to undertake a needs assessment by visiting various sectors of the town, interviewing people and assessing conditions. Their findings revealed that many of the local people did not sufficiently understand the disease, its mode of spread, and essential prevention behaviors that would limit the spread.

 

Three goals were established to meet the challenge: to assure clean potable water access for the highest risk communities, to assure access to oral rehydration solution for the main health center in Thomazeau, and to implement health promotion activities on good sanitation practices.

 

To assure clean potable water access, the team purchased and supplied 150 five-gallon bottles of clean water to the highest risk families, and purchased 3,000 water purification tablets for high-risk families.

 

To provide access to oral rehydration solutions, they purchased and supplied a stockpile of Oral Rehydration Solution bottles to the key health unit.

 

Finally, to implement health promotion activities on good sanitation practices, they identified, trained, educated and equipped two health workers to provide cholera prevention instruction to local religious leaders, teachers and local employers in Thomazeau.

 

Dr. Blavo’s students in a tropical diseases class eagerly assisted with the Thomazeau initiative. “This happened to be a real-life situation that was timely while we were having the class,” said Dr. Blavo.

 

The students assisted with the strategic plan and research, using Google Earth to study the town and infrastructure to see where water sources were. They did research on water purification and came up with recommendations for the ratio of the tablets to a gallon of water.

 

At the end of the four-week Thomazeau project, no new cases of cholera have been identified, and the intervention was applauded throughout the community. Better understanding of a cholera outbreak was apparent, and the capacity of the community itself to plan a future intervention was confirmed.

 

“It really takes very little to make a big difference to people in developing countries,” said Dr. Blavo. “It is very important to do a needs assessment to understand their problems, rather than deciding what their problems are. In this situation, we guided the citizens of Thomazeau to identify resources in their own community and empowered them to solve their own problems.”

 

Dr. Ceme noted that 300 families were helped with just $1,000. He is continuing his work to develop a Women’s Health Center. “Thomazeau has a lot of needs, and the citizens are grateful for support of any kind.”       

 

This small, but enthusiastic coalition to attack the cholera epidemic in Thomazeau reinforces Nova Southeastern University’s reputation as a college that cares, going beyond its primary mission of providing school and university curricula by reaching out to the community with diverse services and resources. The university was recently named one of the “20 Colleges Most Committed to Community Service” by Best Colleges Online in USA Today.