I'm reading the minutes of a meeting I missed last week: “Dans la perspective d’une recrudescence du nombre de cas avec l’arrivée de la saison des mangues, des spots de prévention sont en préparation au niveau du MSPP. Ces messages s’adressent particulièrement aux enfants qui sont les populations les plus à risques pendant cette saison des mangues.”
So I ask my colleagues, “Is 'saison des mangues' what I think it is? Mango season? And if so, why are we having to increase our cholera prevention messages for that, and why are children more at risk?
Turns out there are mango trees everywhere in the rural areas (heaven?). Lots of people, and most children, just pick up mangos whenever they're hungry and eat them without washing either the mangos or their hands. There are also too many mangoes to sell, and so they rot and flies accumulate. Apparently “everyone knows” that diarrheal diseases greatly increase in mango season.
