New Orleans Faces Health Crisis

Posted on September 1, 2005

The Plain Dealer reports that federal officials have already declared a public health emergency for areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina.

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said his agency is concerned about potential disease outbreaks and was sending medical experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He urged residents of the coastal area to boil water and follow food safety precautions as well as to avoid situations that might lead to carbon monoxide poisoning from generators.

The New Orleans area specifically faces huge health risks because of the massive flooding that has occured in the city. A CNN article says dirty water and chemicals will create health problems:

"You have sewage contaminating the water supply," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, head of Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness. "You not only have the danger of the sewage itself, the need for water is one of the primary needs that must be fulfilled and people will drink dirty water, if they get thirsty enough."
Even if non-contaminated water can be found to drink, the water flooding homes and streets may pose a significant hazardous material situation.
"There's all the chemicals within the city -- from the gasoline storage facilities, storage plants, and of course coffins. We will have a large number of coffins released," explained Ivor van Heerden, director of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes in Baton Rouge. "This all mixed together in New Orleans is what we term this 'toxic gumbo.'"

A News-Medical.net article also does a good job of listing all the health concerns. Some of the disease threats include typhoid fever, cholera, leptospirosis, malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus.

Apparently emergency workers have already reported corpses floating in the flood waters, and experts in infectious diseases warn the flood waters might also carry epidemic-causing diseases such as typhoid fever, cholera and leptospirosis.
In a swamp area such New Orleans, there is also a serious risk from mosquito- borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus.

News-Medical.net also reports that the combination of dirty water and continued heat from lack of air conditioning creates an E.coli and salmonella threat.

As disease spreads and emergency workers struggle to treat those most vulnerable, the combination of contaminated water, a lack of sanitation, and heat, could help trigger the spread of a number of bacteria such as E.coli and salmonella.

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