 Agents sante learn to use |
Konbit Sante Receives Grant for Hookworm Treatment in Haiti:
GPS Technology Is Applied in an Impoverished Urban Area
Konbit Sante Cap-Haitien Health Partnership, a Maine-based non-profit organization whose mission is to improve the public health system in northern Haiti, has been awarded a grant from the Conservation, Food & Health Foundation in Massachusetts to develop a system to treat hookworm infections in the impoverished Fort St. Michel neighborhood.
A recent study in Haiti found that two-thirds of pregnant women were suffering from some form of anemia, and the rate of infection is generally worse in urban areas than in rural areas. Hookworm, like many other infectious diseases, is prevalent in areas where there is poor sanitation, and Cap-Haitien, Haiti lacks any municipal sanitary waste system. The medical management of hookworm has been understood for many decades, and the cost of medicine to treat the infection is very low – about 2 cents per person per year. What’s lacking in northern Haiti is the health infrastructure to get treatment into the community.
The hookworm program being developed by Konbit Sante has two important goals. The first is to improve the anemia status of women of reproductive age, thus improving the quality of their daily lives and improving maternal and birth outcomes. The second goal is to build a sustainable, community-directed mass distribution system that will expand the public health system’s capacity to provide other interventions.
According to Konbit Sante executive director Nate Nickerson, “The success of the program depends on the public health system and members of the community taking leadership roles, which they’ve agreed to do. Konbit Sante’s role is to provide training, supplies, and technical assistance. This is truly a konbit, or partnership.”
In June 2007, Konbit Sante-sponsored agents sante (community health workers) learned to use GPS technology to plot households and individuals affected by anemia. “This technology is particularly useful in neighborhoods with no street addresses,” said Nickerson. “None of the agents sante had ever used a computer, so the idea of moving from one electronic screen to another was new. After a few days’ practice we were able to walk around the neighborhood and enter real waypoints together.”
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and has the dismal health statistics that accompany extreme poverty. It is rated last in the world on the Water Poverty Index. Haiti has the highest maternal mortality ratio in the western hemisphere with a 1/16 lifetime chance of dying in childbirth, compared to 1/30,000 here. One in five children does not survive to age five.
Started in 2000, Konbit Sante is a Maine-based group of medical and non-medical professionals working to improve the public health system in Cap-Haitien. Rather than developing a second, parallel health system, Konbit Sante’s mission is to help build local capacity for Haitians to care for Haitians. Developed in collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Health, ongoing Konbit Sante-sponsored programs are in place in pediatrics, internal medicine, women’s health, and public health.