My word associations for “cholera”:
1) Haiti.
2) the book Love in the Time of Cholera, which I’ve never read but I hear is good.
The book is set a long, long time ago, and Haiti’s struggles with cholera are the result of massive earthquake damage, overcrowding and lack of proper sanitation, as is found in developing countries, so my previous assumption was that cholera was something I’d only experience if I moved to a developing country or if I could travel backwards in time. I’ve listened to lengthy podcasts and read just as lengthy articles about the various problems Haiti has faced in the wake of their cholera outbreak, so I was under the impression that cholera is a big deal.
Then my counterpart casually, almost as an aside, mentioned to me last Wednesday that there is cholera in our sea.
Um. Excuse me?
My eyes got big and I kind of just looked at her and repeated what she’d said. (Remember, I’m immediately envisioning the Haitian scenarios I’d heard about only a few months ago.) She told me that in Mariupol there were 5 cases of people with cholera, that all the beaches are closed, that fishing has been banned and that I need to make sure to wash my hands really well.
I was still kind of shocked, and it must have shown on my face, because she stopped and looked at me for a second and said, “Jessica, it happens every summer. Don’t worry.”
Ahh, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.
I sent an email to our Peace Corps doctors to try to figure out the full story, knowing very well that rumors grow quickly in this town. One of the PCMO’s called Ukraine’s Center for Disease Control and was able to tell me that, well, they don’t know where the cholera has come from, but it’s definitely here. As of a few days ago, there have been 8 reported cases, and it looks like the 2 main culprits are dried and salted (not cooked) fish, or seawater.
The fishermen in the area are not pleased, as they are losing business quickly, and I am thoroughly upset because there is literally nothing for me to do at site in the summer. The beach is my site’s saving grace when my school no longer needs me, and also the only reason I ever get PCV visitors. Now, I feel a little like I’ve been robbed.
The beaches have been closed indefinitely, but the PCMO’s tell me that any sane government official would keep them closed for at least a month after the last infection is identified. If things get worse, the beaches could be closed for the whole summer, and it there truly was an outbreak, they’d quarantine the area.
PLEASE NO!!!
As far as I can tell, there haven’t been any cases of cholera in my town specifically, but we are so close to Mariupol (the city with the known cases) that pretty much whatever happens there happens here as well. The Russian town just on our border (about 20 kilometers from my town) has apparently increased it’s border patrol to keep infected water or fish from travelling over to Russia, which means, to my mind, that if the city directly to our west has confirmed cholera cases and the city directly to our east is worried that they can get cholera from the first city, then my town is somehow in the line of fire.
Nevertheless, my town is handling this the way I expected Ukrainians would. My counterpart and a few teachers went to the sea a few days ago, and she says that there were many people in the water, swimming right next to the sign that says “Do not swim in this potentially cholera infested water.”
I was planning on having a few volunteers come to my site this weekend for a birthday/swim/beach party, and we’re still not sure what to do. I’m tempted to do like the Ukrainians do on this one and just make sure to keep my mouth closed when I’m in the water, then sanitize my body thoroughly when I’m all done swimming. I mean, what’s a little diarrhea, right?
What I want to know is exactly how this happened, and why it happens every summer, as a few Ukrainians have told me. My PCMO explained that cholera is something that you usually find in developing, over crowded countries where sanitation is poor. I don’t know what he was implying. I don’t think Ukraine is particularly overcrowded or too horrible with sanitation (it could be worse…). So why does this happen? Is the cholera always in the water, lying dormant until summer? Or does somebody shit in the sea annually, thus perpetuating the cholera cases that occur every summer? And too, if it’s in Mariupol, how far will it go? Does cholera spread quickly? Will it stay in the Mariupol city limits or does it eventually take over the entire Sea of Azov?
If you know the answers to any of these questions, I’d really like to hear from you.
