Word: alphen
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...camp's water becomes tainted, the disease can spread geometrically, making it one of the great killers of disaster survivors. In the 1994 Rwanda refugee crisis, cholera took some 45,000 lives in less than three weeks. "Water sanitation is and remains priority number one," says Dr. Dana Van Alphen, the WHO's team leader in Banda Aceh. In Aceh, much of which remained partially flooded after the tsunami, teams built raised latrines to prevent waste from contaminating the water used by refugee camps. Medical workers were also quick to spray camps for mosquitoes, which transmit malaria and dengue fever...
...Every public-health victory is precarious; the slightest drop in watchfulness can open the door tomorrow for the epidemic that was stymied today. "We don't have measures for success," says Van Alphen. "We only have measures for failure." But for the thousands of survivors still alive today because of those efforts, even a temporary victory is a kind of miracle. Says Waldman: "The fact that nothing has happened so far to worsen the plight of this population that has been so extraordinarily traumatized is something that people should take real pride in." If vigilance is maintained until villages...