In a significant public health mobilization, Haiti’s Ministry of Public Health has inaugurated a sweeping national initiative titled “Pwòpte m se sante m” (My Cleanliness, My Health). Spearheaded by the Directorate of Health Promotion and Environmental Protection, this multi-faceted program represents a strategic response to the nation’s critical hygiene and sanitation challenges.
The project specifically targets high-risk environments where vulnerable populations face elevated health threats, including prisons, displacement camps, and regional healthcare facilities. These locations have been identified as breeding grounds for infectious diseases such as cholera, scabies, and various parasitic conditions that thrive in unsanitary conditions.
Organized around four strategic pillars, the initiative encompasses comprehensive interventions:
1. Prison Sanitation Enhancement: Implementing intensive decontamination protocols, disinfecting living quarters and sanitation facilities, conducting fumigation against disease vectors, and rehabilitating critical water access points to meet established hygiene standards.
2. Displacement Camp Support: Establishing regular sanitation services and permanent community health posts in Port-au-Prince’s densely populated displacement camps through organized clean-up campaigns, improved waste management systems, and reinforced WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) infrastructure.
3. Mobile Medical Services: Deploying mobile clinic units to provide incarcerated individuals with direct healthcare access, including comprehensive medical consultations, systematic screening for tuberculosis, STIs/HIV, and scabies, alongside essential medication distribution.
4. Hospital Infection Control: Strengthening hygiene protocols in departmental hospitals through targeted decontamination of critical care areas including delivery rooms and surgical theaters, alongside implementing safe biomedical waste disposal systems to meet prevention standards.
This coordinated effort marks a proactive approach to epidemic prevention through environmental health improvements, representing one of Haiti’s most comprehensive public health interventions targeting institutional sanitation infrastructure.