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The reality is that things are not going well. In order for the epidemic not to get out of control, the Ministry of Public Health started work on the cholera vaccine line, and therefore sent a request to the World Health Organization to provide vaccines to Lebanon, and the response came yesterday in approval. In this context, the Minister of Public Health, Firas Abyad, announced, in a press conference devoted yesterday to talk about cholera developments and the vaccine strategy, the arrival of a letter from the International Coordination Group for the Provision of Vaccines of the World Health Organization to provide Lebanon with up to 600,000 vaccine doses, which are expected to arrive within a period of time. Two weeks. According to sources in the ministry, it is also expected that “Lebanon will receive a donation of 10,000 doses of cholera vaccine.”
These vaccines are supposed to land in the central drug warehouse in Karantina, waiting for the vaccine committee formed by the Ministry of Health to prepare the national plan for the dissemination and implementation of vaccines, which Abyad expects to complete its “map” within a month from now.
Target groups
As for the target groups, the Ministry of Health announced earlier that they will not be vaccines for the general public, but for specific groups, which can be defined epidemiologically as the groups most at risk. In this context, Dr. Abd al-Rahman al-Bizri, a specialist in microbial diseases, divides the targets into two categories:
The first category is the category “more vulnerable to the epidemic, and it includes the areas where cholera has started and spread, including the Syrian refugee camps, in addition to prisons, which are expected to be one of the options because they may turn into a hotbed in the event that cholera reaches them.” The second category is those in contact with the epidemic, and here we can talk about health workers, doctors, field hospitals and government hospitals that receive cholera patients.
3 months protection
The cholera vaccine is taken orally, and according to Al-Bizri, one dose is sufficient “to provide protection at a good rate that extends for approximately three months.” For Al-Bizri, this margin of protection gives “breath” to the ministry to control the epidemic, but this is conditional on working – in parallel – to secure sustainable solutions to the problems that are at the core of the spread of cholera, that is, the infrastructure, where Al-Bizri reiterates that “ The vaccine will not be a substitute for other options, which are providing clean water, sewage treatment, and monitoring agriculture and livestock.” In short, “that the state performs its duties, represented by the relevant ministries.”
Hospital readiness
Not far from the task related to the map of vaccines and how to distribute them, there is another work related to the readiness of hospitals to absorb the coming epidemic, and the extent of the human crews’ ability to confront this “battle” as Abyad describes it. In this context, the Ministry of Health has formed a committee for general hospitals and field hospitals, through which it aims to study the conditions of providing services to the issue of cholera, and to ascertain quality standards, in addition to conducting the necessary training for human staff.
Vaccination is not a substitute for securing clean water and monitoring agriculture and livestock
As for the hospitals participating so far in the face of the epidemic, they are still confined to government hospitals, and there are 6 hospitals, in which there are so far 70 injured, namely: Akkar – Halba, El Nini – Tripoli, Governmental Tripoli, Governmental Hermel, Hariri University and Baabda Governmental. In addition to this, the field hospital in the Akkari region of Benin, and the field hospitals that are being equipped in Sir Al-Diniyeh, Arsal, Bar Elias, and other hospitals that may be imposed by the new outposts of spread.
The Ministry of Public Health also sent a letter to the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities, informing them that laboratories in government hospitals will be opened free of charge to municipalities to conduct water tests. The Ministry is also working in coordination with the Red Cross to trace water tanks to know the sources of water, in addition to the commitment of their owners to sterilize this water.