Targets reached in Haiti's pilot cholera vaccination program, NPR reports

NPR's "Shots" blog reports on the results of a "high-visibility pilot project to vaccinate 100,000 Haitians against cholera." The blog writes, "Almost 90 percent of the target population -- half in Port-au-Prince and the other half in a remote rural area -- got fully protected against cholera, meaning they got two doses of the oral vaccine," adding, "The sponsors of the project -- the nonprofit medical groups GHESKIO in Port-au-Prince and Partners in Health in rural Haiti -- presented the results on Monday at a session with the country's health minister, Dr. Florence Guillaume."

"The results defy the forecasts of skeptics who said in advance of the campaign that it would be lucky to protect 60 percent of the target populations," the blog continues. "'The debate has definitely shifted from whether we should scale up cholera vaccination to how we should scale it up,' Jonathan Lascher of Partners in Health told Shots," the blog notes. "The health ministry wants vaccination integrated with the cholera strategy, and now the discussion is how do we do it," he added, according to "Shots." "As Haitians now begin to plan how to ramp up cholera vaccination, its allies are plotting how to raise the millions of dollars it would take," the blog writes (Knox, 7/17).